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m^lje  Hit3er0itie  lliterature  ^erietf 


AFOOT    AND    AFLOAT 

BY 

JOHN  BURROUGHS 


WITH  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  BY 
CLIFTON  JOHNSON 


_e:RO)ergiac:Pre^ 


BOSTON  NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS'    NOTE 

The  three  papers  given  in  this  volume  will  appeal 
especially  to  the  large  number  of  boys  and  girls  who 
enjoy  stories  of  boating,  camping,  and  tramping  experi- 
ences. The  first,  "A  Summer  Boating  Trip,"  is  from 
**  Pepacton  and  Other  Sketches ; "  the  second,  "  Camp- 
ing with  the  President,"  is  from  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  " 
for  May,  1906;  and  the  third,  "A  Tramp  in  the  Cat- 
skills,"  is  a  selection,  complete  in  itself,  from  "  Birch 
Browsings"  in  "Wake-Robin."  The  biographical 
sketch  by  Clifton  Johnson  will  also  be  enjoyed  by  chil- 
dren who  have  become  familiar  with  Burroughs's 
writings. 

In  presenting  another  volume  of  Burroughs's  essays 
in  the  Riverside  Literature  Series,  the  publishers  feel 
that  the  reception  accorded  the  previous  Burroughs 
numbers  in  this  series  testifies  to  the  adaptability  of 
the  writings  of  this  nature  philosopher  to  school  use. 
The  desirability  of  bringing  children  into  that  intimate 
and  sympathetic  relationship  with  nature  which  per- 
vades  all  of  Mr.  Burroughs's  writings  is  apparent  to 
all  teachers  who  recognize  the  need  and  the  difiiculty 
of  inculcating  a  love  of  nature  in  their  pupils. 

CONTENTS 

PAOS 

Biographical   Sketch  of    John    Burkoughs  by    Cufton 
Johnson 1 

A  Summer  Boating  Trip 7 

Camping  with  the  President 36 

A  Tramp  in  the  Catskills 72 

COPYRIGHT,    1871,    1S81,    1S99,    1907,    1909,   AND    1913,    BY  JOHN   BURROUGHS 
COPYRIGHT,    1901,    1906,   AND   1907,   BY   HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   &    CO. 


JOHN   BURROUGHS 

A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

BY  CLIFTON    JOHNSON 

In  the  town  of  Roxbury,  among  the  western  Catskills, 
was  born  April  3,  1837,  John  Burroughs.  The  house  in 
which  he  first  saw  the  hght  was  an  unpainted,  squarish 
structure,  only  a  single  story  high,  with  a  big  chimney 
in  the  middle.  This  house  was  removed  a  few  years 
later,  and  a  better  and  somewhat  larger  one,  which  still 
stands,  was  built  in  its  place.  The  situation  is  very 
pleasing.  Roundabout  is  a  varied  country  of  heights, 
dales,  woods  and  pastures,  and  cultivated  fields.  The 
dwelling  is  in  a  wide  upland  hollow  that  falls  away  to 
the  east  and  south  into  a  deep  valley,  beyond  which 
rise  line  on  line  of  great  mounding  hills.  These  turn 
blue  in  the  distance  and  look  like  immense  billows 
rolling  in  from  a  distant  ocean. 

There  were  ten  children  in  the  Burroughs  family, 
and  John  was  the  seventh  of  this  numerous  household. 
He  was  a  true  country  boy,  acquainted  with  all  the 
hard  work  and  all  the  pleasures  of  an  old-fashioned 
farm  life.  His  people  were  poor  and  he  had  his  own 
way  to  make  in  the  world,  but  the  environment  was 
on  the  whole  a  salutarv  one. 

He  has  always  had  a  marked  affection  for  the  place 
of  his  birth,  and  he  rejoices  in  the  fact  that  from  an 
eminence  near  his  present  home  on  the  Hudson  he  can 
see  mountains  that  are  visible  from  his  native  hills. 


2  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

Two  or  three  times  every  year  he  goes  back  to  these 
hills  to  renew  his  youth  among  the  familiar  scenes  of 
his  boyhood. 

"  Johnnv  "  Burroughs,  as  he  was  known  to  his  home 
folks  and  the  neighbors,  was  very  like  the  other  young- 
sters of  the  region  in  his  interests,  his  ways,  and  his 
work.  Yet  as  compared  with  them  he  undoubtedly  had 
a  livelier  imagination,  and  things  made  a  keener  im- 
pression on  his  mind.  In  some  cases  his  sensitiveness 
was  more  disturbing  than  gratifying.  When  his  grand- 
father told  "spook"  stories  to  the  children  gathered 
around  the  evening  blaze  of  the  kitchen  fireplace, 
John's  hair  would  almost  stand  on  end  and  he  w^as 
afraid  of  every  shadow. 

He  went  to  school  in  the  little  red  schoolhouse  across 
the  valley,  and  as  he  grew  older  he  aspired  to  attend 
an  academy.  But  he  had  to  make  the  opportunity  for 
himself,  and  only  succeeded  in  doing  so  at  the  age  of 
seventeen,  w-hen  he  raised  the  needful  money  by  six 
months  of  teaching.  This  enabled  him  in  the  autumn 
of  1854  to  enter  the  Heading  Literary  Institute  at 
Ashland.  He  found  the  life  there  enjoyable,  but  his 
funds  ran  low^  by  spring  and  he  was  obliged  to  return 
to  the  farm.  Until  September  he  labored  among  his 
native  fields,  then  took  up  teaching  again.  When  pay 
day  came  he  set  off  for  a  seminary  of  some  note  at 
Cooperstown,  w^here  a  single  term  brought  his  student 
days  forever  to  a  close,  and  after  another  period  of  farm 
work  at  home  he  borrowed  a  small  sum  of  money  and 
journeyed  to  Illinois.  Near  Freeport  he  secured  a 
school  at  forty  dollars  a  month,  w  hich  was  much  more 
than  he  could  have  earned  in  the  East.  Yet  he  gave  up 
his  position  at  the  end  of  six  months.   "  I  came  back.'* 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  3 

he  says,  "  because  of  '  the  girl  I  left  behind  me; '  and  it 
was  pretty  hard  to  stay  even  as  long  as  I  did." 

Soon  afterward  he  married.  His  total  capital  at  the 
time  was  fifty  dollars,  a  sum  which  was  reduced  one 
fifth  by  the  wedding  expenses.  For  several  years  he 
continued  to  teach,  and  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  we 
find  him  in  charge  of  a  school  near  West  Point.  Up  to 
this  time  his  interest  in  nature  and  his  aptitude  for 
observation  lay  dormant.  But  now  it  was  awakened 
by  reading  a  volume  of  Audubon  which  chanced  to  fall 
into  his  hands.  That  was  a  revelation,  and  he  went  to 
the  woods  with  entirely  new  interest  and  enthusiasm. 
He  began  at  once  to  get  acquainted  with  the  birds,  his 
vision  grew  keen  and  alert,  and  birds  he  had  passed  by 
before,  he  now  saw  at  once. 

Meanwhile  the  Civil  War  was  going  on,  and  it 
aroused  in  Burroughs  a  strong  desire  to  enlist.  He 
visited  Washington  to  get  a  closer  view  of  army  life, 
but  what  he  saw  of  it  rather  damped  his  military  ardor. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  the  men  were  driven  about  and 
herded  like  cattle;  and  when  a  peaceful  position  in  the 
Treasury  Department  was  offered  him  he  accepted  it, 
and  for  nine  years  was  a  Government  clerk. 

At  the  Treasury  he  guarded  a  vault  and  kept  a  record 
of  the  monev  that  went  in  or  out.  The  duties  were  not 
arduous,  and  in  his  long  intervals  of  leisure  his  mind 
wandered  far  afield.  It  dwelt  on  the  charm  of  flitting 
wnngs  and  bird  melodies,  on  the  pleasures  of  rambling 
along  country  roads  and  into  the  woodlands;  and,  sit- 
ting before  the  Treasury  vault,  at  a  high  desk  and  facing 
an  iron  wall  he  began  to  write.  There  was  no  need  for 
notes.  His  memory  was  all-sufficient,  and  the  result  was 
the  essays  which  make  "  W^ake-Robin,"  —  his  first  book. 


4  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

By  1873  Burroughs  had  had  enough  of  the  routine 
of  a'  Government  clerkship,  and  he  resigned  to  become 
the  receiver  of  a  bank  in  Middletown,  New  York. 
Later  he  accepted  a  position  as  bank  examiner  in  the 
eastern  part  of  the  State.  But  his  longing  to  return  to 
the  soil  was  growing  apace,  and  presently  he  bought  a 
little  farm  on  the  west  shore  of  the  Hudson.  He  at  once 
erected  a  substantial  stone  house  and  started  orchards 
and  vineyards,  yet  it  was  not  until  1885  that  he  feU  he 
could  relinquish  his  Government  position  and  dwell 
on  his  own  land  with  the  assurance  of  a  safe  support. 

He  has  never  been  a  great  traveler.  Still,  he  has 
been  abroad  twice  and  has  recently  made  a  trip  to 
Alaska.  Lesser  excursions  have  taken  him  to  Virginia 
and  Kentucky,  and  to  Canada,  and  he  has  camped  in 
Maine  and  the  Adirondacks.  But  the  district  that  he 
knows  best  and  that  he  puts  oftenest  into  his  nature 
studies  is  his  home  country  in  the  Catskills  and  the 
region  about  his  "Riverby"  farm.  Very  little  of  his 
writing,  however,  has  been  done  in  the  house  in  which 
he  lives.  This  was  never  a  wholly  satisfactory  workinf]^ 
place.  He  felt  he  must  get  away  from  all  conventional- 
ities, and  he  early  put  up  on  the  outskirts  of  his  vine- 
yards a  little  bark-covered  study,  to  which  it  has  been 
his  habit  to  retire  for  his  indoor  thinking  and  writing. 
He  still  uses  this  study  more  or  less,  and  often  in  the 
summer  evenings  sits  in  an  easy  chair,  under  an  ay)ple- 
tree  just  outside  the  door,  and  listens  to  the  voices  of 
Nature  while  he  looks  off  across  the  Hudson. 

But  the  spot  that  at  present  most  engages  his  affec- 
tion is  a  reclaimed  woodland  swamp,  back  among 
some  rocky  hills,  a  mile  or  two  from  the  river.  A  few 
years  ago  the  swamp  was  a  wild  tangle  of  brush  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH  S 

stumps,  fallen  trees  and  murky  pools.  Now  it  has  been 
cleared  and  drained,  and  the  dark  forest  mould  pro- 
duces wonderful  crops  of  celery,  sweet  corn,  potatoes, 
and  other  vegetables.  On  a  shoulder  of  rock  near  the 
swamp  borders  Burroughs  has  built  a  rustic  house, 
sheathed  outside  with  slabs,  and  smacking  in  all  its 
arrangements  of  the  woodlands  and  of  the  days  of 
pioneering.  It  has  an  open  fireplace,  where  the  flames 
crackle  cheerfully  on  chilly  evenings,  and  over  the 
fireplace  coals  most  of  the  cooking  is  done ;  but  in  really 
hot  weather  an  oil  stove  serves  instead. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  hollow  a  delightfully  cold 
spring  bubbles  forth,  and  immediately  back  of  the 
house  is  a  natural  cavern  which  makes  an  ideal  storage 
place  for  perishable  foods.  The  descent  to  the  cavern 
is  made  by  a  rude  ladder,  and  the  sight  of  Burroughs 
coming  and  going  between  it  and  the  house  has  a  most 
suggestive  touch  of  the  wild  and  romantic. 

He  is  often  at  "  Slabsides  "  —  sometimes  for  weeks 
or  months  at  a  time,  though  he  always  makes  daily 
visits  to  the  valley  to  look  after  the  work  in  his  vine- 
yards  and  to  visit  the  post-office  at  the  railway  station. 
He  is  a  leisurelv  man,  to  whom  haste  and  the  nervous 
pursuit  of  wealth  or  fame  are  totally  foreign.  He  thor- 
oughly enjoys  country  loitering,  and  when  he  gets  a 
hint  of  anything  interesting  or  new  going  on  among 
the  birds  and  little  creatures  of  the  fields,  he  likes  to 
stop  and  investigate.  His  ears  are  remarkably  quick 
and  his  eyes  and  sense  of  smell  phenomenally  acute, 
and  much  which  to  most  of  us  would  be  unperceived 
or  meaningless  he  reads  as  if  it  were  an  open  book.  Best 
of  all,  he  has  the  power  of  imparting  his  enjoyment, 
and  what  he  writes  is  full  of  outdoor  fragrance,  racy, 


6  BIOGRAPHICAL   SKETCH 

piquant,  and  individual.  His  snap  and  vivacity  are 
wholly  unartificial.  They  are  a  part  of  the  man  —  a 
man  full  of  imagination  and  sensitiveness,  a  philoso- 
pher, a  humorist,  a  hater  of  shams  and  pretension. 
The  tenor  of  his  life  changes  little  from  year  to  year, 
his  affections  remain  steadfast,  and  this  hardy,  gray 
poet  of  things  rural  will  continue,  as  ever,  the  warm- 
hearted nature  enthusiast,  and  inspirer  t>A"  the  love  of 
nature  in  others. 


AFOOT  AND  AFLOAT 

A    SUMMER    BOATING    TRIP 

When  one  summer  day  I  bethought  me  of  a  voyage 
down  the  east  or  Pepacton  branch  of  the  Delaware, 
I  seemed  to  want  some  excuse  for  the  start,  some  send- 
off,  some  preparation,  to  give  the  enterprise  genesis 
and  head.  This  I  found  in  building  my  own  boat.  It 
was  a  happy  thought.  How  else  should  I  have  got 
under  wav,  how  else  should  I  have  raised  the  breeze  ? 
The  boat-building  warmed  the  blood;  it  made  the 
germ  take;  it  whetted  my  appetite  for  the  voyage. 
There  is  nothing  like  serving  an  apprenticeship  to  for- 
tune, like  earning  the  right  to  your  tools.  In  most 
enterprises  the  temptation  is  always  to  begin  too  far 
alons ;  we  want  to  start  where  somebodv  else  leaves  off. 
Go  back  to  the  stump,  and  see  what  an  impetus  you 
get.  Those  fishermen  who  wind  their  own  flies  before 
they  go  a-fishing,  —  how  they  bring  in  the  trout ;  and 
those  hunters  who  run  their  own  bullets  or  make  their 
own  cartridges,  —  the  game  is  already  mortgaged  to 
them. 

When  my  boat  was  finished  —  and  it  was  a  very 
simple  affair  —  I  was  eager  as  a  boy  to  be  off ;  I  feared 
the  river  would  all  run  bv  before  I  could  wet  her  bot- 
torn  in  it.  This  enthusiasm  begat  great  expectations 
of  the  trip.  I  should  surely  surprise  Nature  and  win 
some  new  secrets  from  her.  I  should  glide  down  noise- 
lessly upon  her  and  see  what  all  those  willow  screens 


8  A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP 

and  baffling  curves  concealed.  As  a  fisherman  and 
pedestrian  I  had  been  able  to  come  at  the  stream  only 
at  certain  points:  now  the  most  private  and  secluded 
retreats  of  the  nymph  would  be  opened  to  me;  every 
bend  and  eddy,  every  cove  hedged  in  by  swamps  or 
passage  walled  in  by  high  alders,  would  be  at  the  beck 
of  my  paddle. 

Whom  shall  one  take  with  him  when  he  goes  a-court- 
ing  Nature  ?  This  is  always  a  vital  question.  There 
are  persons  who  will  stand  between  you  and  that  which 
you  seek:  they  obtrude  themselves;  they  monopolize 
your  attention;  they  blunt  your  sense  of  the  shy,  half- 
revealed  intelligences  about  you.  I  want  for  companion 
a  dog  or  a  boy,  or  a  person  who  has  the  virtues  of  dogs 
and  boys,  —  transparency,  good-nature,  curiosity,  open 
sense,  and  a  nameless  quality  that  is  akin  to  trees  and 
growths  and  the  inarticulate  forces  of  nature.  With 
him  you  are  alone,  and  yet  have  company ;  you  are  free ; 
you  feel  no  disturbing  element ;  the  influences  of  nature 
stream  through  him  and  around  him;  he  is  a  good  con- 
ductor of  the  subtle  fluid.  The  quality  or  qualification 
I  refer  to  belongs  to  most  persons  who  spend  their  lives 
in  the  open  air,  —  to  soldiers,  hunters,  fishers,  laborers, 
and  to  artists  and  poets  of  the  right  sort.  How  full  of 
it,  to  choose  an  illustrious  example,  was  such  a  man  as 
Walter  Scott! 

But  no  such  person  came  in  answer  to  my  prayer,  so 
I  set  out  alone. 

It  was  fit  that  I  put  my  boat  into  the  water  at  Ark- 
ville,  but  it  may  seem  a  little  incongruous  that  I  should 
launch  her  into  Dry  Brook;  vet  Drv  Brook  is  here  a 
fine  large  trout  stream,  and  I  soon  found  its  waters 
were  wet  enough  for  all  practical  purposes.   The  Dela- 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  9 

ware  is  only  one  mile  distant,  and  I  chose  this  as  the 
easiest  road  from  the  station  to  it.  A  young  farmer 
helped  me  carry  the  boat  to  the  water,  but  did  not  stay 
to  see  me  off;  only  some  calves  feeding  alongshore  wit- 
nessed my  embarkation.  It  would  have  been  a  godsend 
to  boys,  but  there  were  no  boys  about.  I  stuck  on  a  rift 
before  I  had  gone  ten  yards,  and  saw  with  misgiving 
the  paint  transferred  from  the  bottom  of  my  little 
scow  to  the  tops  of  the  stones  thus  early  in  the  journey. 
But  I  was  soon  making  fair  headway,  and  taking  trout 
for  my  dinner  as  I  floated  along.  My  first  mishap  was 
when  I  broke  the  second  joint  of  my  rod  on  a  bass, 
and  the  first  serious  impediment  to  my  progress  was 
when  I  encountered  the  trunk  of  a  prostrate  elm 
bridging  the  stream  within  a  few  inches  of  the  surface. 
My  rod  mended  and  the  elm  cleared,  I  anticipated 
better  sailing  when  I  should  reach  the  Delaware  itself; 
but  I  found  on  this  day  and  on  subsequent  days  that 
the  Delaware  has  a  way  of  dividing  up  that  is  very 
embarrassing  to  the  navigator.  It  is  a  stream  of  many 
minds:  its  waters  cannot  long  agree  to  go  all  in  the 
same  channel,  and  whichever  branch  I  took  I  was 
pretty  sure  to  wish  I  had  taken  one  of  the  others.  I  w^as 
constantly  sticking  on  rifts,  where  I  would  have  to 
dismount,  or  running  full  tilt  into  willow  banks,  where 
I  would  lose  my  hat  or  endanger  my  fishing-tackle. 
On  the  whole,  the  result  of  my  first  day's  voyaging  was 
not  encouraging.  I  made  barely  eight  miles,  and  my 
ardor  was  a  good  deal  dampened,  to  say  nothing  about 
my  clothing.  In  mid-afternoon  I  went  to  a  well-to-do- 
looking  farmhouse  and  got  some  milk,  which  I  am 
certain  the  thrifty  housewife  skimmed,  for  its  blueness 
infected  my  spirits,  and  I  went  into  camp  that  night 


10  A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP 

more  than  half  persuaded  to  abandon  the  enterprise 
in  the  morning.  The  lonehness  of  the  river,  too,  unhke 
that  of  the  fields  and  woods,  to  which  I  was  more  accus- 
tomed, oppressed  me.  In  the  woods,  things  are  close  to 
you,  and  you  touch  them  and  seem  to  interchange 
something  with  them;  but  upon  the  river,  even  though 
it  be  a  narrow  and  shallow  one  like  this,  you  are  more 
isolated,  farther  removed  from  the  soil  and  its  attrac- 
tions, and  an  easier  prey  to  the  unsocial  demons.  The 
long,  unpeopled  vistas  ahead;  the  still  dark  eddies; 
the  endless  monotone  and  soliloquy  of  the  stream;  the 
unheeding  rocks  basking  like  monsters  along  the  shore, 
half  out  of  the  water,  half  in ;  a  solitary  heron  starting 
up  here  and  there,  as  you  rounded  some  point,  and 
flapping  disconsolately  ahead  till  lost  to  view,  or  stand- 
ing like  a  gaunt  spectre  on  the  umbrageous  side  of  the 
mountain,  his  motionless  form  revealed  against  the 
dark  green  as  you  passed;  the  trees  and  willows  and 
alders  that  hemmed  vou  in  on  either  side,  and  hid  the 
fields  and  the  farmhouses  and  the  road  that  ran 
near  by,  —  these  things  and  others  aided  the  skimmed 
milk  to  cast  a  gloom  over  my  spirits  that  argued  ill 
for  the  success  of  my  undertaking.  Those  rubber  boots, 
too,  that  parboiled  my  feet  and  were  clogs  of  lead  about 
them,  —  whose  spirits  are  elastic  enough  to  endure 
them  ?  A  malediction  upon  the  head  of  him  who  in- 
vented them!  Take  vour  old  shoes,  that  will  let  the 
water  in  and  let  it  out  again,  rather  than  stand  knee- 
deep  all  day  in  these  extinguishers. 

I  escaped  from  the  river,  that  first  night,  and  took  to 
the  woods,  and  profited  by  the  change.  In  the  w^oods 
I  was  at  home  again,  and  the  bed  of  hemlock  boughs 
salved  my  spirits.    A  cold  spring  run  came  down  off 


A   SUMMER   BOATING  TRIP  n 

the  mountain,  and  beside  it,  underneath  birches  and 
hemlocks,  I  improvised  my  hear^^hstone.  In  sleeping 
on  the  ground  it  is  a  great  advantage  to  have  a  back- 
log; it  braces  and  supports  you,  and  it  is  a  bedfellow 
that  will  not  grumble  when,  in  the  middle  of  the  niirht, 
you  crowd  sharply  up  against  it.  It  serves  to  keep  in 
the  warmth,  also.  A  heavy  stone  or  other  point  de  re- 
sistance at  your  feet  is  also  a  help.  Or,  better  still, 
scoop  out  a  little  place  in  the  earth,  a  few  inches  deep, 
so  as  to  admit  your  body  from  your  hips  to  your  shoul- 
ders; you  thus  get  an  equal  bearing  the  whole  length 
of  you.  I  am  told  the  Western  hunters  and  guides  do 
this.  On  the  same  principle,  the  sand  makes  a  good 
bed,  and  the  snow.  You  make  a  mould  in  which  you 
fit  nicely.  My  berth  that  night  was  between  two  logs 
that  the  barkpeelers  had  stripped  ten  or  more  years 
before.  As  they  had  left  the  bark  there,  and  as  hem- 
lock bark  makes  excellent  fuel,  I  had  more  reasons 
than  one  to  be  grateful  to  them. 

In  the  morning  I  felt  much  refreshed,  and  as  if  the 
night  had  tided  me  over  the  bar  that  threatened  to  stay 
my  progress.  If  I  can  steer  clear  of  skimmed  milk,  I 
said,  I  shall  now  finish  the  voyage  of  fiftv  miles  to 
Hancock  with  increasing  pleasure. 

When  one  breaks  camp  in  the  morning,  he  turns 
back  again  and  again  to  see  what  he  has  left.  Surely, 
he  feels,  he  has  forgotten  something;  what  is  it?  But 
it  is  only  his  own  sad  thoughts  and  musings  he  has  left, 
the  fragment  of  his  life  he  has  lived  there.  Where  he 
hung  his  coat  on  the  tree,  where  he  slept  on  the  boughs, 
where  he  made  his  coffee  or  broiled  his  trout  over  the 
coals,  where  he  drank  again  and  again  at  the  little 
brown  pool  in  the  spring  run,  where  he  looked  long 


12  A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP 

and  lonc^  up  into  the  whispering  branches  overhead, 
he  has  left  what  he  cannot  bring  away  with  him,  — 
the  flame  and  the  ashes  of  himself. 

Of  certain  game-birds  it  is  thought  that  at  times 
they  have  the  power  of  withholding  their  scent;  no 
hint  or  particle  of  themselves  goes  out  upon  the  air. 
I  think  there  are  persons  whose  spiritual  pores  are  al- 
ways sealed  up,  and  I  presume  they  have  the  best  time 
of  it.  Their  hearts  never  radiate  into  the  void ;  they 
do  not  yearn  and  sympathize  without  return;  they 
do  not  leave  themselves  by  the  wayside  as  the  sheep 
leaves  her  wool  upon  the  brambles  and  thorns. 

This  branch  of  the  Delaware,  so  far  as  I  could  learn, 
had  never  before  been  descended  by  a  white  man  in 
a  boat.  Rafts  of  pine  and  hemlock  timber  are  run 
down  on  the  spring  and  fall  freshets,  but  of  pleasure- 
seekers  in  boats  I  appeared  to  be  the  first.  Hence  my 
advent  was  a  surprise  to  most  creatures  in  the  water 
and  out.  I  surprised  the  cattle  in  the  field,  and  those 
ruminating  leg-deep  in  the  water  turned  their  heads 
at  my  approach,  swallowed  their  unfinished  cuds,  and 
scampered  off  as  if  they  had  seen  a  spectre.  I  sur- 
prised the  fish  on  their  spawning  beds  and  feeding 
grounds;  they  scattered,  as  my  shadow  glided  down 
upon  them,  like  chickens  when  a  hawk  appears.  I 
surprised  an  ancient  fisherman  seated  on  a  spit  of 
gravelly  beach,  with  his  back  up  stream,  and  leisurely 
angling  in  a  deep,  still  eddy,  and  mumbling  to  him- 
self. As  I  shd  into  the  circle  of  his  vision  his  grip  on 
his  pole  relaxed,  his  jaw  dropped,  and  he  was  too  be- 
wildered to  reply  to  my  salutation  for  some  moments. 
As  I  turned  a  bend  in  the  river  I  looked  back,  and  saw 
him  hastening  away  with  great  precipitation.    I  pre- 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  13 

sume  he  had  angled  there  for  forty  years  without  hav- 
ing his  privacy  thus  intruded  upon.  I  surprised  hawks 
and  herons  and  kingfishers.  I  came  suddenly  upon 
muskrats,  and  raced  with  them  down  the  rifts,  they 
having  no  time  to  take  to  their  holes.  At  one  point, 
as  I  rounded  an  elbow  in  the  stream,  a  black  eagle 
sprang  from  the  top  of  a  dead  tree,  and  flapped  hur- 
riedly away.  A  kingbird  gave  chase,  and  disappeared 
for  some  moments  in  the  gulf  between  the  great  wings 
of  the  eagle,  and  I  imagined  him  seated  upon  his 
back  delivering  his  puny  blows  upon  the  royal  bird. 
I  interrupted  two  or  three  minks  fishing  and  hunting 
alongshore.  They  would  dart  under  the  bank  when 
they  saw  me,  then  presently  thrust  out  their  sharp, 
weasel-like  noses,  to  see  if  the  danger  was  imminent. 
At  one  point,  in  a  little  cove  behind  the  willows, 
I  surprised  some  schoolgirls,  with  skirts  amazingly 
abbreviated,  wading  and  playing  in  the  water.  And 
as  much  surprised  as  any,  I  am  sure,  was  that  hard- 
worked  looking  housewife,  when  I  came  up  from  under 
the  bank  in  front  of  her  house,  and  with  pail  in  hand 
appeared  at  her  door  and  asked  for  milk,  taking  the 
precaution  to  intimate  that  I  had  no  objection  to  the 
yellow  scum  that  is  supposed  to  rise  on  a  fresh  article 
of  that  kind. 

"  What  kind  of  milk  do  vou  want  ?  " 

"The  best  you  have.  Give  me  two  quarts  of  it," 
I  replied. 

"  What  do  vou  want  to  do  with  it  ?  "  with  an  anxious 
tone,  as  if  I  might  want  to  blow  up  something  or  burn 
her  barns  with  it. 

"Oh,  drink  it,"  I  answered,  as  if  I  frequently  put 
milk  to  that  use. 


14  A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP 

"Well,  I  suppose  I  can  get  you  some;"  and  she 
presently  reappeared  with  swimming  pail,  with  those 
little  yellow  flakes  floating  about  upon  it  that  one  likes 

to  see. 

I  passed  several  low  dams  the  second  day,  but  had 
ao  trouble.  I  dismounted  and  stood  upon  the  apron, 
and  the  boat,  with  plenty  of  line,  came  over  as  lightly 
as  a  chip,  and  swung  around  in  the  eddy  below  like 
a  steed  that  knows  its  master.  In  the  afternoon,  while 
slowly  drifting  down  a  long  eddy,  the  moist  southwest 
wind  brought  me  the  welcome  odor  of  strawberries, 
and  running  ashore  by  a  meadow,  a  short  distance 
below,  I  was  soon  parting  the  daisies  and  filling  my 
cup  with  the  dead-ripe  fruit.  Berries,  be  they  red, 
blue,  or  black,  seem  like  a  special  providence  to  the 
camper-out;  they  are  luxuries  he  has  not  counted  on, 
and  I  prized  these  accordingly.  Later  in  the  day  it 
threatened  rain,  and  I  drew  up  to  shore  under  the  shel- 
ter of  some  thick  overhanging  hemlocks,  and  proceeded 
to  eat  my  berries  and  milk,  glad  of  an  excuse  not  to 
delay  my  lunch  longer.  While  tarrying  here  I  heard 
young  voices  up  stream,  and  looking  in  that  direction 
saw  two  boys  coming  down  the  rapids  on  rude  floats. 
They  were  racing  along  at  a  lively  pace,  each  with  a 
pole  in  his  hand,  dexterously  avoiding  the  rocks  and 
the  breakers,  and  schooling  themselves  thus  early  in 
the  duties  and  perils  of  the  raftsman.  As  they  saw  me 
one  observed  to  the  other,  — 

"There  is  the  man  we  saw  go  by  when  we  were 
building  our  floats.  If  w^e  had  known  he  was  coming 
so  far,  maybe  we  could  have  got  him  to  give  us  a  ride." 

They  drew  near,  guided  their  crafts  to  shore  beside 
me,  and  tied  up,  their  poles  answering  for  haw^sers. 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  13 

They  proved  to  be  Johnny  and  Denny  Dwire,  aged 
ten  and  twelve.  They  were  friendly  boys,  and  though 
not  a  bit  bashful  were  not  a  bit  impertinent.  And 
Johnny,  who  did  the  most  of  the  talking,  had  such  a 
sweet  musical  voice;  it  was  like  a  bird's.  It  seems 
Denny  had  run  away,  a  day  or  two  before,  to  his  uncle'i 
five  miles  above,  and  Johnny  had  been  after  him,  and 
was  bringing  his  prisoner  home  on  a  float;  and  it  v/as 
hard  to  tell  which  was  enjoying  the  fun  most,  the  cap- 
tor or  the  captured. 

"  Why  did  you  run  away  ?  "  said  I  to  Denny. 

"Oh,  'cause,"  replied  he,  with  an  air  which  said 
plainly,  "The  reasons  are  too  numerous  to  mention." 

"Boys,  you  know,  will  do  so,  sometimes,"  said 
Johnny,  and  he  smiled  upon  his  brother  in  a  way  that 
made  me  think  they  had  a  very  good  understanding 
upon  the  subject. 

They  could  both  swim,  yet  their  floats  looked  very 
perilous,  —  three  pieces  of  old  plank  or  slabs,  with 
two  cross-pieces  and  a  fragment  of  a  board  for  a  rider, 
and  made  without  nails  or  withes. 

"In  some  places,"  said  Johnny,  "one  plank  was 
here  and  another  ofi"  there,  but  we  managed,  some- 
how, to  keep  atop  of  them." 

"  Let 's  leave  our  floats  here,  and  ride  with  him  the 
rest  of  the  way,"  said  one  to  the  other. 

"All  right;  may  we,  mister?" 

I  assented,  and  we  were  soon  afloat  again.  How 
they  enjoyed  the  passage;  how  smooth  it  was;  how 
the  boat  glided  along;  how  quickly  she  felt  the  paddle! 
They  admired  her  much ;  they  praised  my  steersman 
ship;  they  praised  my  fish-pole  and  all  my  fixings  dovm 
to  my  hateful  rubber  boots.    When  w^e  stuck  op  the 


16  A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP 

rifts,  as  we  did  several  times,  they  leaped  out  quickly, 
with  their  bare  feet  and  legs,  and  pushed  us  off. 

*'  I  think,"  said  Johnny,  "  if  you  keep  her  straight 
and  let  her  have  her  own  way,  she  will  find  the  deepest 
water.    Don't  you,  Denny  ?  " 

"I  think  she  will,"  replied  Denny;  and  I  found  the 
boys  were  pretty  nearly  right. 

I  tried  them  on  a  point  of  natural  history.  I  had 
observed,  coming  along,  a  great  many  dead  eels  lying 
on  the  bottom  of  the  river,  that  I  supposed  had  died 
from  spear  wounds.  "No,"  said  Jolinny,  "they  are 
lamper-eels.  They  die  as  soon  as  they  have  built  their 
nests  and  laid  their  eggs." 

"  Are  you  sure  ? " 

"That's  what  they  all  say,  and  I  know  they  are 

lampers." 

So  I  fished  one  up  out  of  the  deep  water  with  my 
paddle-blade  and  examined  it;  and  sure  enough  it  w^as 
a  lamprey.  There  was  the  row  of  holes  along  its  head, 
and  its  ugly  suction  mouth.  I  had  noticed  their  nests, 
too,  all  along,  where  the  water  in  the  pools  shallowed  to 
a  few  feet  and  began  to  hurry  toward  the  rifts:  they 
were  low  mounds  of  small  stones,  as  if  a  bushel  or  more 
of  large  pebbles  had  been  dumped  upon  the  river  bot- 
tom; occasionallv  thev  were  so  near  the  surface  as  to 
make  a  big  ripple.  The  eel  attaches  itself  to  the  stones 
by  its  mouth,  and  thus  moves  them  at  will.  An  old 
fisherman  told  me  that  a  strong  man  could  not  pull 
a  large  lamprey  loose  from  a  rock  to  which  it  had  at- 
tached itself.  It  fastens  to  its  prey  in  this  way,  and 
sucks  the  life  out.  A  friend  of  mine  savs  he  once  saw 
in  the  St.  Lawrence  a  pike  as  long  as  his  arm  with  a 
lamprey  eel  attached  to  him.    The  fish  was  nearly 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  17 

dead  and  was  quite  white,  the  eel  had  so  sucked  out 
his  blood  and  substance.  The  fish,  when  seized,  darts 
against  rocks  and  stones,  and  tries  in  vain  to  rub  the 
eel  off,  then  succumbs  to  the  sucker. 

"The  lampers  do  not  all  die,"  said  Denny,  "be- 
cause they  do  not  all  spawn;"  and  I  observed  that 
the  dead  ones  were  all  of  one  size  and  doubtless  of  the 
same  age. 

The  lamprey  is  the  octopus,  the  devil-fish,  of  these 
waters,  and  there  is,  perhaps,  no  tragedy  enacted  here 
that  equals  that  of  one  of  these  vampires  slowly  suck- 
ing the  life  out  of  a  bass  or  a  trout. 

My  boys  went  to  school  part  of  the  time.  Did  they 
have  a  good  teacher  ? 

"  Good  enough  for  me,"  said  Johnny. 

"  Good  enough  for  me,"  echoed  Denny. 

Just  below  Bark-a-boom  —  the  name  is  worth 
keeping  —  they  left  me.  I  was  loath  to  part  with  them; 
their  musical  voices  and  their  thorough  good-fellow- 
ship had  been  very  acceptable.  With  a  little  persua- 
sion, I  think  they  would  have  left  their  home  and  hum- 
ble fortunes,  and  gone  a-roving  with  me. 

About  four  o'clock  the  warm,  vapor-laden  south- 
west wind  brought  forth  the  expected  thunder-shower. 
I  saw  the  storm  rapidly  developing  behind  the  moun- 
tains in  my  front.  Presently  I  came  in  sight  of  a  long 
covered  wooden  bridge  that  spanned  the  river  about 
a  mile  ahead,  and  I  put  my  paddle  into  the  water  with 
all  my  force  to  reach  this  cover  before  the  storm.  It 
was  neck  and  neck  most  of  the  way.  The  storm  had 
the  wind,  and  I  had  it  —  in  my  teeth.  The  bridge  was 
at  Shavertown,  and  it  was  by  a  close  shave  that  I  got 
under  it  before  the  rain  was  upon  me.   How  it  poured 


18  A  SUxMMER   BOATING   TRIP 

and  rattled  and  whipped  in  around  the  abutment  of 
the  bridge  to  reach  me !  I  looked  out  well  satisfied  upon 
the  foaming  water,  upon  the  wet,  unpainted  houses 
and  barns  of  the  Shavertowners,  and   upon  the  trees, 

"Caught  and  cuffed  by  the  gale." 

Another  traveler  —  the  spotted-winged  nighthawk  — 
was  also  roughly  used  by  the  storm.  He  faced  it  bravely, 
and  beat  and  beat,  but  was  unable  to  stem  it,  or  even 
hold  his  own ;  gradually  he  drifted  back,  till  he  was  lost 
to  siirht  in  the  wet  obscurity.  The  water  in  the  river 
rose  an  inch  while  I  waited,  about  three  quarters  of  an 
hour.  Only  one  man,  I  reckon,  saw  me  in  Shavertown, 
and  he  came  and  gossiped  with  me  from  the  bank 
above  when  the  storm  had  abated. 

The  second  night  I  stopped  at  the  sign  of  the  elm- 
tree.  The  woods  were  too  w^et,  and  I  concluded  to 
make  my  boat  my  bed.  A  superb  elm,  on  a  smooth 
grassy  plain  a  few  feet  from  the  water's  edge,  looked 
hospitable  in  the  twilight,  and  I  drew  my  boat  up 
beneath  it.  I  hung  my  clothes  on  the  jagged  edges  of 
its  rough  bark,  and  went  to  bed  with  the  moon,  "  in  her 
third  quarter,"  peeping  under  the  branches  upon  me. 
I  had  been  reading  Stevenson's  amusing  "Travels 
with  a  Donkey,"  and  the  lines  he  pretends  to  quote 
from  an  old  play  kept  running  in  my  head :  — • 

"The  bed  was  made,  the  room  was  fit. 
By  punctual  eve  the  stars  were  lit; 
The  air  was  sweet,  the  water  ran; 
No  need  was  there  for  maid  or  man. 
When  we  put  up,  my  ass  and  I, 
At  God's  green  caravanserai." 

But  the  stately  elm  played  me  a  trick:  it  slyly  and  at 
iong  intervals  let  great  drops  of  water  down  upon  me. 


A    SUMMER    BOATING    TRIP  19 

now  with  a  sharp  smack  upon  my  rubber  coat;  then 
with  a  heavy  thud  upon  the  seat  in  the  bow  or  stern 
of  my  boat;  then  plump  into  my  upturned  ear,  or  upon 
my  uncovered  arm,  or  with  a  ring  into  my  tin  cup,  or 
with  a  splash  into  my  coffee-pail  that  stood  at  my  side 
full  of  water  from  a  spring  I  had  just  passed.  After 
two  hours'  trial  I  found  dropping  off  to  sleep,  under 
such  circumstances,  was  out  of  the  question ;  so  I  sprang 
up,  in  no  very  amiable  mood  toward  my  host,  and  drew 
my  boat  clean  from  under  the  elm.  I  had  refreshing 
slumber  thenceforth,  and  the  birds  were  astir  in  the 
morning  long  before  I  was. 

There  is  one  way,  at  least,  in  which  the  denuding 
the  country  of  its  forests  has  lessened  the  rainfall:  in 
certain  conditions  of  the  atmosphere  every  tree  is  a 
great  condenser  of  moisture,  as  I  had  just  observed 
in  the  case  of  the  old  elm ;  little  showers  are  generated 
in  their  branches,  and  in  the  aggregate  the  amount 
of  water  precipitated  in  this  way  is  considerable.  Of 
a  foggy  summer  morning  one  may  see  little  puddles  of 
water  standing  on  the  stones  beneath  maple-trees, 
alono;  the  street ;  and  in  winter,  when  there  is  a  sudden 
change  from  cold  to  warm,  with  fog,  the  water  fairly 
runs  down  the  trunks  of  the  trees,  .and  streams  from 
their  naked  branches.  The  temperature  of  the  tree  is 
so  much  below  that  of  the  atmosphere  in  such  cases 
that  the  condensation  is  very  rapid.  In  lieu  of  these 
arboreal  rains  we  have  the  dew  upon  the  grass,  but  it 
is  doubtful  if  the  grass  ever  drips  as  does  a  tree. 

The  birds,  I  say,  were  astir  in  the  morning  before 
I  was,  and  some  of  them  were  more  wakeful  through 
the  night,  unless  they  sing  in  their  dreams.  At  this 
season  one  may  hear  at  intervals  numerous  bird  voices 


go  A    SUMMER    BOATING    TRIP 

during  the  night.  The  whip-poor-will  was  piping  when 
I  lay  down,  and  I  still  heard  one  when  I  woke  up  aftf-r 
midnight.  I  heard  the  song  sparrow  and  the  kingbird 
also/  like  watchers  calling  the  hour,  and  several  times 
I  heard  the  cuckoo.  Indeed,  I  am  convinced  that  our 
cuckoo  is  to  a  considerable  extent  a  night  bird,  and 
that  he  moves  about  freely  from  tree  to  tree.  His  pecu- 
liar guttural  note,  now  here,  now  there,  may  be  heard 
almost  any  summer  night,  in  any  part  of  the  country, 
and  occasionally  his  better  known  cuckoo  call.  He  is 
a  great  recluse  by  day,  but  seems  to  wander  abroad 
freely  by  night. 

The  birds  do  indeed  begin  with  the  day.  The  farmer 
who  is  in  the  field  at  work  while  he  can  yet  see  stars 
catches  their  first  matin  hymns.  In  the  longest  June 
days  the  robin  strikes  up  about  half  past  three  o'clock, 
and  is  quickly  followed  by  the  song  sparrow,  the  oriole, 
the  catbird,  the  wren,  the  wood  thrush,  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  tuneful  choir.  Along  the  Potomac  I  have  heard 
the  Virginia  cardinal  whistle  so  loudly  and  persistently 
in  the  treetops  above,  that  sleeping  after  four  o'clock 
was  out  of  the  question.  Just  before  the  sun  is  up, 
there  is  a  marked  lull,  during  which,  I  imagine,  the 
birds  are  at  breakfast..  While  building  their  nest,  it  is 
very  early  in  the  morning  that  they  put  in  their  big 
strokes;  the  back  of  their  day's  work  is  broken  before 
you  have  begun  yours. 

A  lady  once  asked  me  if  there  was  any  individuality 
among  the  birds,  or  if  those  of  the  same  kind  were  as 
near  alike  as  two  peas.  I  was  obliged  to  answer  that 
to  the  eye  those  of  the  same  species  were  as  near  alike 
as  two  peas,  but  that  in  their  songs  there  were  often 
marks  of  originality.     Caged   or  domesticated   birds 


A    SUMMER   BOATING    TRIP  21 

develop  notes  and  traits  of  their  own,  and  among  the 
more  famiHar  orchard  and  garden  birds  one  ma}? 
notice  the  same  tendency.  I  observe  a  great  variety 
of  songs,  and  even  quahties  of  voice,  among  the  orioles 
and  among  the  song  sparrows.  On  this  trip  my  ear  was 
especially  attracted  to  some  striking  and  original  spar- 
row songs.  At  one  point  I  was  half  afraid  I  had  let 
pass  an  opportunity  to  identify  a  new  warbler,  but 
finally  concluded  it  was  a  song  sparrow.  On  another 
occasion  I  used  to  hear  day  after  day  a  sparrow  that 
appeared  to  have  some  organic  defect  in  its  voice :  part 
of  its  song  was  scarcely  above  a  whisper,  as  if  the  bird 
was  suffering  from  a  very  bad  cold.  I  have  heard  a 
bobolink  and  a  hermit  thrush  with  similar  defects  of 
voice.  I  have  heard  a  robin  with  a  part  of  the  whistle 
of  the  quail  in  his  song.  It  was  out  of  time  and  out  of 
tune,  but  the  robin  seemed  insensible  of  the  incon- 
gruity, and  sang  as  loudly  and  as  joyously  as  any  of 
his  mates.  A  catbird  will  sometimes  show  a  special 
genius  for  mimicry,  and  I  have  known  one  to  suggest 
very  plainly  some  notes  of  the  bobolink. 

There  are  numerous  long  covered  bridges  spanning 
the  Delaware,  and  under  some  of  these  I  saw  the  cliff 
swallow  at  home,  the  nests  being  fastened  to  the  under 
sides  of  the  timbers,  —  as  it  were,  suspended  from  the 
ceiling  instead  of  being  planted  upon  the  shelving  or 
perpendicular  side,  as  is  usual  with  them.  To  have 
iaid  the  foundation,  indeed,  to  have  sprung  the  vault 
downward  and  finished  it  successfully,  must  have 
required  special  engineering  skill.  I  had  never  before 
seen  or  heard  of  these  nests  being  so  placed.  But  birds 
are  quick  to  adjust  their  needs  to  the  exigencies  of  any 
case.   Not  long  before,  I  had  seen  in  a  deserted  house. 


22  A    SUMMER    BOATING   TRIP 

on  the  head  of  the  Rondout,  the  chimney  swallows 
entering  the  chamber  through  a  stove-pipe  hole  in  the 
roof,  and  gluing  their  nests  to  the  sides  of  the  rafters, 
like  the  barn  swallows. 

I  was  now,  on  the  third  day,  well  down  in  the 
wilds  of  Colchester,  with  a  current  that  made  between 
two  and  three  miles  an  hour,  —  just  a  summer  idler's 
pace.  The  atmosphere  of  the  rive-  had  improved  much 
since  the  first  day,  —  was,  indeed,  without  taint, — 
and  the  water  was  sweet  and  good.  There  were  farm- 
houses at  intervals  of  a  mile  or  so;  but  the  amount  of 
tillable  land  in  the  river  valley  or  on  the  adjacent 
mountains  was  very  small.  Occasionally  there  would 
be  fortv  or  fiftv  acres  of  flat,  usually  in  grass  or  corn, 
with  a  thrifty  looking  farmhouse.  One  could  see  how 
surely  the  land  made  the  house  and  its  surroundings ; 
good  land  bearing  good  buildings,  and  poor  land  poor. 

In  mid-forenoon  I  reached  the  long  placid  eddy  at 
Downsville,  and  here  again  fell  in  with  two  boys.  They 
were  out  paddling  about  in  a  boat  when  I  drew  near, 
and  thev  evidently  regarded  me  in  the  light  of  a  rare 
prize  which  fortune  had  wafted  them. 

"  Ain't  you  glad  we  come,  Benny  ?  "  I  heard  one  of 
them  observe  to  the  other,  as  they  were  conducting 
me  to  the  best  place  to  land.  They  were  bright,  good 
boys,  off  the  same  piece  as  my  acquaintances  of  the 
day  before,  and  about  the  same  ages,  —  differing  only 
in  being  village  boys.  AYith  what  curiosity  they  looked 
me  over!  Where  had  I  come  from;  where  was  I  going; 
how  long  had  I  been  on  the  wav;  who  built  mv  boat; 
was  I  a  carpenter,  to  build  such  a  neat  craft,  etc.  ? 
They  never  had  seen  such  a  traveler  before.  Had  I  had 
no  mishaps  ?    And  then  the}^  bethought  them  of  the 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  23 

dangerous  passes  that  awaited  me,  and  in  good  faith 
began  to  warn  and  advise  me.  They  had  heard  the 
tales  of  raftsmen,  and  had  conceived  a  vivid  idea  of  the 
perils  of  the  river  below,  gauging  their  notions  of  it 
from  the  spring  and  fall  freshets  tossing  about  the 
heavy  and  cumbrous  rafts.  There  was  a  whirlpool,  a 
rock  eddy,  and  a  binocle  within  a  mile.  I  might  be 
caught  in  the  binocle,  or  engulfed  in  the  whirlpool,  or 
smashed  up  in  the  eddy.  But  I  felt  much  reassured 
when  they  told  me  I  had  already  passed  several  whirl- 
pools and  rock  eddies;  but  that  terrible  binocle, — 
what  was  that  ?  I  had  never  heard  of  such  a  monster. 
Oh,  it  was  a  still,  miry  place  at  the  head  of  a  big  eddy. 
The  current  might  carry  me  up  there,  but  I  could 
easily  get  out  again;  the  rafts  did.  But  there  was  an- 
other place  I  must  beware  of,  where  two  eddies  faced 
each  other;  raftsmen  were  sometimes  swept  off  there 
by  the  oars  and  drowned.  And  when  I  came  to  rock 
eddy,  which  I  would  know,  because  the  river  divided 
there  (a  part  of  the  water  being  afraid  to  risk  the 
eddy,  I  suppose),  I  must  go  ashore  and  survey  the 
pass;  but  in  any  case  it  would  be  prudent  to  keep  to 
the  left.  I  might  stick  on  the  rift,  but  that  was  nothing 
to  being  wrecked  upon  those  rocks.  The  boys  v/ere 
quite  in  earnest,  and  I  told  them  I  would  walk  up  to 
the  village  and  post  some  letters  to  my  friends  before 
[  braved  all  these  dangers.  So  they  marched  me  up 
the  street,  pointing  out  to  their  chums  what  they  had 
found. 

"  Going   way  to  Phil —    What   place   is   that   near 
where  the  river  goes  into  the  sea  ?  " 

"  Philadelphia  ? " 

"  Yes ;  thinks  he  may  go  way  there.    Won't  he  have 
fun  ?  " 


24  A   SUMMER   BOATING   TRIP 

The  boys  escorted  me  about  the  town,  then  back  to 
the  river,  and  got  in  their  boat  and  came  down  to  the 
bend,  where  they  could  see  me  go  through  the  whirl- 
pool and  pass  the  binocle  (I  am  not  sure  about  the 
orthography  of  the  word,  but  I  suppose  it  means  a 
double,  or  a  sort  of  mock  eddy).  I  looked  back  as  I 
shot  over  the  rough  current  beside  a  gentle  vortex, 
and  saw  them  watching  me  with  great  interest.  Rock 
eddy,  also,  was  quite  harmless,  and  I  passed  it  without 
any  preliminary  survey. 

I  nooned  at  vSodom,  and  found  good  milk  in  a 
humble  cottage.  In  the  afternoon  I  was  amused  by  a 
great  blue  heron  that  kept  flying  up  in  advance  of  me. 
Every  mile  or  so,  as  I  rounded  some  point,  I  would 
come  unexpectedly  upon  him,  till  finally  he  grew  dis- 
gusted with  my  silent  pursuit,  and  took  a  long  turn  to 
the  left  up  along  the  side  of  the  mountain,  and  passed 
back  up  the  river,  uttering  a  hoarse,  low  note. 

The  wind  still  boded  rain,  and  about  four  o'clock, 
announced  by  deep-toned  thunder  and  portentous 
clouds,  it  began  to  charge  down  the  mountain-side  in 
front  of  me.  I  ran  ashore,  covered  my  traps,  and  took 
my  way  up  through  an  orchard  to  a  quaint  little  farm- 
house. But  there  was  not  a  soul  about,  outside  or  in, 
that  I  could  find,  though  the  door  was  unfastened;  so 
I  went  into  an  open  shed  with  the  hens,  and  lounged 
upon  some  straw,  while  the  unloosed  floods  came 
down.  It  was  better  than  boating  or  fishing.  Indeed, 
there  are  few  summer  pleasures  to  be  placed  before 
that  of  reclining  at  ease  directly  under  a  sloping  roof, 
after  toil  or  travel  in  the  hot  sun,  and  looking  out  into 
the  rain-drenched  air  and  fields.  It  is  such  a  vital  yet 
soothing  spectacle.    We  sympathize  with  the  earth. 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  *    25 

We  know  how  good  a  bath  is,  and  the  unspeakable 
dehciousness  of  water  to  a  parched  tongue.  The  office 
of  the  sunshine  is  slow,  subtle,  occult,  unsuspected; 
but  when  the  clouds  do  their  work  the  benefaction  is 
so  palpable  and  copious,  so  direct  and  wholesale,  that 
all  creatures  take  note  of  it,  and  for  the  most  part 
rejoice  in  it.  It  is  a  completion,  a  consummation,  a 
paying  of  a  debt  with  a  royal  hand;  the  measure  is 
heaped  and  overflowing.  It  was  the  simple  vapor  of 
water  that  the  clouds  borrowed  of  the  earth;  now  they 
pay  back  more  than  water:  the  drops  are  charged  with 
electricity  and  with  the  gases  of  the  air,  and  have  new 
solvent  powers.  Then,  how  the  slate  is  sponged  off,  and 
left  all  clean  and  new  again ! 

In  the  shed  where  I  was  sheltered  were  many  relics 
and  odds  and  ends  of  the  farm.  In  juxtaposition  with 
two  of  the  most  stalwart  wagon  or  truck  wheels  I  ever 
looked  upon,  was  a  cradle  of  ancient  and  peculiar 
make,  —  an  aristocratic  cradle,  with  high-turned  posts 
and  an  elaborately  carved  and  moulded  bodv,  that  was 
suspended  upon  rods  and  swung  from  the  top.  How 
I  should  have  liked  to  hear  its  historv  and  the  storv^  of 
the  lives  it  had  rocked,  as  the  rain  sang  and  the  boughs 
tossed  without!  Above  it  was  the  cradle  of  a  phoebe- 
bird  saddled  upon  a  stick  that  ran  behind  the  rafter; 
its  occupants  had  not  flown,  and  its  story  was  easy  to 
read. 

Soon  after  the  first  shock  of  the  storm  was  over,  and 
before  I  could  see  breaking  sky,  the  birds  tuned  up 
with  new  ardor,  —  the  robin,  the  indigo-bird,  the 
purple  finch,  the  song  sparrow,  and  in  the  meadow 
below  the  bobolink.  The  cockerel  near  me  followed 
suit,  and  repeated  his  refrain  till  my  meditations  wer( 


26    •  A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP 

so  disturbed  that  I  was  compelled  to  eject  him  from  the 
cover,  albeit  he  had  the  best  right  there.  But  he  crowed 
his  defiance  with  drooping  tail  from  the  yard  in  front. 
I,  too,  had  mentally  crowed  over  the  good  fortune  of 
the  shower;  but  before  I  closed  my  eyes  that  night  my 
crest  was  a  good  deal  fallen,  and  I  could  have  wished 
the  friendly  elements  had  not  squared  their  accounts 
quite  so  readily  and  uproariously. 

The  one  shower  did  not  exhaust  the  supply  a  bit; 
Nature's  hand  was  full  of  trumps  yet,  —  yea,  and 
her  sleeve,  too.  I  stopped  at  a  trout  brook,  which  came 
down  out  of  the  mountains  on  the  right,  and  took  a 
few  trout  for  my  supper;  but  its  current  was  too  roily 
from  the  shower  for  fly-fishing.  Another  farmhouse 
attracted  me,  but  there  was  no  one  at  home ;  so  I  picked 
a  quart  of  strawberries  in  the  meadow  in  front,  not 
minding  the  wet  grass,  and  about  six  o'clock,  thinking 
another  storm  that  had  been  threatening  on  my  right 
had  miscarried,  I  pushed  off,  and  went  floating  down 
into  the  deepening  gloom  of  the  river  valley.  The 
mountains,  densely  wooded  from  base  to  summit,  shut 
in  the  view  on  every  hand.  They  cut  in  from  the  right 
and  from  the  left,  one  ahead  of  the  other,  matchinir 
like  the  teeth  of  an  enormous  trap;  the  river  was  caught 
and  bent,  but  not  long  detained,  by  them.  Presently  I 
saw  the  rain  creeping  slowly  over  them  in  my  rear,  for 
the  v/ind  had  changed ;  but  I  apprehended  nothing  but 
a  moderate  sundown  drizzle,  such  as  we  often  get  from 
the  tail  end  of  a  shower,  and  drew  up  in  the  eddv  of  a 
big  rock  under  an  overhanging  tree  till  it  should  have 
passed.  But  it  did-ifot  pass;  it  thickened  and  deepened, 
and  reached  a  steady  pour  by  the  time  I  had  calcu- 
lated the  sun  would  be  gilding  the  mountain-tops.    I 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  27 

had  wrapped  my  rubber  coat  about  my  blankets  and 
groceries,  and  bared  my  back  to  the  storm.  In  sullen 
silence  I  saw  the  night  settling  down  and  the  rain 
increasing;  my  roof -tree  gave  way,  and  every  leaf 
poured  its  accumulated  drops  upon  me.  There  were 
streams  and  splashes  where  before  there  had  been 
little  more  than  a  mist.  I  was  getting  well  soaked  and 
uncomplimentary  in  my  remarks  on  the  weather, 
A  saucy  catbird,  near  by,  flirted  and  squealed  very 
plainly,  "  There !  there !  What  did  I  tell  you !  what  did 
I  tell  you!  Pretty  pickle!  pretty  pickle!  pretty  pickle 
to  be  in!"  But  I  had  been  in  worse  pickles,  though 
if  the  water  had  been  salt  my  pickling  had  been  pretty 
thorough.  Seeing  the  wind  was  in  the  northeast,  and 
that  the  weather  had  fairly  stolen  a  march  on  me,  I  let 
go  my  hold  of  the  tree,  and  paddled  rapidly  to  the 
opposite  shore,  which  was  low  and  pebbly,  drew  my 
boat  up  on  a  little  peninsula,  turned  her  over  upon  a 
spot  which  I  cleared  of  its  coarser  stone,  propped 
up  one  end  with  the  seat,  and  crept  beneath.  I  would 
now  test  the  virtues  of  my  craft  as  a  roof,  and  I  found 
she  was  without  flaw,  though  she  was  pretty  narrow. 
The  tension  of  her  timber  was  such  that  the  rain  upon 
her  bottom  made  a  low,  musical  hum. 

Crouched  on  my  blankets  and  boughs,  —  for  I  had 
gathered  a  good  supply  of  the  latter  before  the  rain 
overtook  me,  —  and  dry  only  about  my  middle,  I 
placidly  took  life  as  it  came.  A  great  blue  heron  flew 
by,  and  let  off  something  like  ironical  horse  laughter. 
Before  it  became  dark  I  proceeded  to  eat  my  supper,  — 
my  berries,  but  not  my  trout.  What  a  fuss  we  make 
about  the  "  hulls  "  upon  strawberries !  We  are  hyper- 
critical ;  we  may  yet  be  glad  to  dine  off  the  hulls  alone. 


28  A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP 

Some  people  see  something  to  pick  and  carp  at  in  every 
good  that  comes  to  them;  I  was  thankful  that  I  had 
the  berries,  and  resolutely  ignored  their  little  scal- 
loped ruflaes,  which  I  found  pleased  the  eye  and  did 
not  disturb  the  palate. 

When  bedtime  arrived,  I  found  undressing  a  little 
awkward,  my  berth  was  so  low;  there  was  plenty  of 
room  in  the  aisle,  and  the  other  passengers  were  no- 
where to  be  seen,  but  I  did  not  venture  out.  It  rained 
nearly  all  night,  but  the  train  made  good  speed,  and 
reached  the  land  of  davbreak  nearly  on  time.    The 

»■■■  »-' 

water  in  the  river  had  crept  up  during  the  night  to 
within  a  few  inches  of  mv  boat,  but  I  rolled  over  and 
took  another  nap,  all  the  same.  Then  I  arose,  had  a 
delicious  bath  in  the  sweet,  swift-running  current,  and 
turned  my  thoughts  toward  breakfast.  The  making 
of  the  coffee  was  the  only  serious  problem.  With 
everything  soaked  and  a  fine  rain  still  falling,  how 
shall  one  build  a  fire  ?  I  made  my  way  to  a  little  island 
above  in  quest  of  driftwood.  Before  I  had  found  the 
wood  I  chanced  upon  another  patch  of  delicious  wild 
strawberries,  and  took  an  appetizer  of  them  out  of 
hand.  Presently  I  picked  up  a  yellow  birch  stick  the 
size  of  mv  arm.  The  wood  was  decaved,  but  the  bark 
was  perfect.  I  broke  it  in  two,  punched  out  the  rotten 
wood,  and  had  the  bark  intact.  The  fattv  or  resinous 
substance  in  this  bark  preserves  it,  and  makes  it  excel- 
lent kindling.  With  some  seasoned  twigs  and  a  scrap 
of  paper  I  soon  had  a  fire  going  that  answered  my 
every  purpose.  More  berries  were  picked  while  the 
coffee  was  brewing,  and  the  breakfast  was  a  success. 
The  camper-out  often  finds  himself  in  what  seems 
a  distressing  predicament  to  people  seated   in  their 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  29 

snug,  well-ordered  houses;  but  there  is  often  a  real 
satisfaction  when  things  come  to  their  worst,  —  a  sat- 
isfaction in  seeing  what  a  small  matter  it  is,  after  all; 
that  one  is  really  neither  sugar  nor  salt,  to  be  afraid 
of  the  wet;  and  that  life  is  just  as  well  worth  living 
beneath  a  scow  or  a  dug-out  as  beneath  the  highest 
and  broadest  roof  in  Christendom. 

By  ten  o'clock  it  became  necessary  to  move,  on 
account  of  the  rise  of  the  water,  and  as  the  rain  had 
abated  I  picked  up  and  continued  my  journey.  Before 
long,  however,  the  rain  increased  again,  and  I  took 
refuge  in  a  barn.  The  snug,  tree-embowered  farm- 
house looked  very  inviting,  just  across  the  road  from 
the  barn;  but  as  no  one  was  about,  and  no  faces  ap- 
peared at  the  window  that  I  might  judge  of  the  inmates, 
I  contented  myself  with  the  hospitality  the  barn  offered, 
filling  my  pockets  with  some  dry  birch  shavings  I 
found  there  where  the  farmer  had  made  an  ox-yoke, 
against  the  needs  of  the  next  kindling. 

After  an  hour's  detention  I  was  off  again.  I  stopped 
at  Baxter's  Brook,  which  flows  hard  by  the  classic 
hamlet  of  Harvard,  and  tried  for  trout,  but  with  poor 
success,  as  I  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  go  far  up 
stream. 

At  several  points  I  saw  rafts  of  hemlock  lumber  tied 
to  the  shore,  ready  to  take  advantage  of  the  first 
freshet.  Rafting  is  an  important  industry  for  a  hundred 
miles  or  more  along  the  Delaware.  The  lumbermen 
sometimes  take  their  families  or  friends,  and  have  a 
jollification  all  the  way  to  Trenton  or  to  Philadelphia. 
In  some  places  the  speed  is  very  great,  almost  equaling 
that  of  an  express  train.  The  passage  of  such  places 
as  Cochecton  Falls  and  "  Foul  Rift "  is  attended  with 


30  A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP 

no  little  danger.  The  raft  is  guided  by  two  immense 
oars,  one  before  and  one  behind.  I  frequently  saw 
these  huge  implements  in  the  driftwood  alongshore, 
suf'c'-estin^  some  colossal  race  of  men.  The  raftsmen 
have  names  of  their  own.  From  the  upper  Delaware, 
where  I  had  set  in,  small  rafts  are  run  down  which 
they  call  "  colts."  They  come  frisking  down  at  a  lively 
pace.  At  Hancock  they  usually  couple  two  rafts 
together,  when  I  suppose  they  have  a  span  of  colts; 
or  do  two  colts  make  one  horse?  Some  parts  of  the 
framework  of  the  raft  they  call  "  grubs ; "  much  depends 
upon  these  grubs.  The  lumbermen  were  and  are  a 
hardy,  virile  race.  The  Hon.  Charles  Knapp,  of 
Deposit,  now  eighty-three  years  of  age,  but  with  the 
look  and  step  of  a  man  of  sixty,  told  me  he  had  stood 
nearly  all  one  December  day  in  the  water  to  his  waist, 
reconstructing  his  raft,  which  had  gone  to  pieces  on 
the  head  of  an  island.  Mr.  Knapp  had  passed  the  first 
half  of  his  life  in  Colchester  and  Hancock,  and, 
although  no  sportsman,  had  once  taken  part  in  a  great 
bear  hunt  there.  The  bear  was  an  enormous  one,  and 
was  hard  pressed  by  a  gang  of  men  and  dogs.  Their 
muskets  and  assaults  upon  the  beast  with  clubs  had 
made  no  impression.  Mr.  Knapp  saw  where  the  bear 
was  coming,  and  he  thought  he  would  show  them  how 
easy  it  was  to  dispatch  a  bear  with  a  club,  if  you  only 
knew  where  to  strike.  He  had  seen  how  quickly  the 
largest  hog  would  wilt  beneath  a  slight  blow  across  the 
"small  of  the  back."  So,  armed  with  an  immense 
handspike,  he  took  up  a  position  by  a  large  rock  that 
the  bear  must  pass.  On  she  came,  panting  and  nearly 
exhausted,  and  at  the  right  moment  down  came  the 
club  with  great  force  upon  the  small  of  her  back.   "  If 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  31 

a  fly  had  alighted  upon  her,"  said  Mr.  Knapp,  "  I  think 
she  would  have  paid  just  as  much  attention  to  it  as  she 
did  to  me."  ^ 

Early  in  the  afternoon  I  encountered  another  boy, 
Henry  Ingersoll,  who  was  so  surprised  by  my  sudden 
and  unwonted  appearance  that  he  did  not  know  east 
from  west.  "  Which  way  is  west  ? "  I  inquired,  to  see 
if  my  own  head  was  straight  on  the  subject. 

"That  way,"  he  said,  indicating  east  within  a  few 
degrees. 

"  You  are  wrong,"  I  repHed,  "  Where  does  the  sun 
rise  ?  " 

"  There,"  he  said,  pointing  almost  in  the  direction  he 
had  pointed  before. 

*'  But  does  not  the  sun  rise  in  the  east  here  as  well  as 
elsewhere.^"    I  rejoined. 

"Well,  they  call  that  west,  anyhow." 

But  Henry's  needle  was  subjected  to  a  disturbing 
influence  just  then.  His  house  was  near  the  river,  and 
he  was  its  sole  guardian  and  keeper  for  the  time;  his 
father  had  gone  up  to  the  next  neighbor's  (it  was  Sun- 
day), and  his  sister  had  gone  with  the  schoolmistress 
down  the  road  to  get  black  birch.  He  came  out  in 
the  road,  with  wide  eyes,  to  view  me  as  I  passed,  when 
I  drew  rein,  and  demanded  the  points  of  the  compass, 
as  above.  Then  I  shook  my  sooty  pail  at  him  and  asked 
for  milk.  Yes,  I  could  have  some  milk,  but  I  would 
have  to  wait  till  his  sister  came  back;  after  he  had 
recovered  a  little,  he  concluded  he  could  get  it.  He 
came  for  my  pail,  and  then  his  boyish  curiosity  ap- 
peared. My  story  interested  him  immensely.  He  had 
seen  twelve  summers,  but  he  had  only  been  four  miles 
trom  home  up  and  down  the  river:  he  had  been  down 


32  A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP 

to  the  East  Branch,  and  he  had  been  up  to  Trout 
Brook.  He  took  a  pecuniary  interest  in  me.  What  did 
my  pole  cost  ?  What  my  rubber  coat,  and  what  my 
revolver?  The  latter  he  must  take  in  his  hand;  he  had 
never  seen  such  a  thing  to  shoot  with  before  in  his  life, 
etc.  He  thought  I  might  make  the  trip  cheaper  and 
easier  by  stage  and  by  the  cars.  He  went  to  school :  there 
were  six  scholars  in  summer,  one  or  two  more  in  winter. 
The  population  is  not  crowded  in  the  town  of  Hancock, 
certainly,  and  never  will  be.  The  people  live  close  to 
the  bone,  as  Thoreau  would  sav,  or  rather  close  to  the 
stump.  Many  years  ago  the  young  men  there  resolved 
upon  having  a  ball.  They  concluded  not  to  go  to  a 
hotel,  on  account  of  the  expense,  and  so  chose  a  private 
house.  There  was  a  man  in  the  neighborhood  who 
could  play  the  fife;  he  offered  to  furnish  the  music  for 
seventv-five  cents.  But  this  was  deemed  too  much,  so 
one  of  the  party  agreed  to  whistle.  History  does  not 
tell  how  many  beaux  there  were  bent  upon  this  reck- 
less enterprise,  but  there  were  three  girls.  For  refresh- 
ments they  bought  a  couple  of  gallons  of  whiskey  and 
a  few  pounds  of  sugar.  When  the  spree  was  over,  and 
tke  expenses  were  reckoned  up,  there  was  a  shilling  — 
a  York  shilling — apiece  to  pay.  Some  of  the  revelers 
were  dissatisfied  with  this  charge,  and  intimated  that 
the  managers  had  not  counted  themselves  in,  but  taxed 
the  whole  expense  upon  the  rest  of  the  party. 

As  I  moved  on  I  saw  Henrv's  sister  and  the  school- 
mistress  picking  their  way  along  the  muddy  road  near 
the  river's  bank.  One  of  them  saw  me,  and,  dropping 
her  skirts,  said  to  the  other  (I  could  read  the  motions), 
**See  that  man!"  The  other  lowered  her  flounces, 
aad  looked  up  and  down  the  road,  then  glanced  over 


A  SUMMER  BOATING  TRIP  33 

into  the  field,  and  lastly  out  upon  the  river.  They 
paused  and  had  a  good  look  at  me,  though  I  could  see 
that  their  impulse  to  run  away,  like  that  of  a  fright- 
ened deer,  was  strong. 

At  the  East  Branch  the  Big  Beaver  Kill  joins  the 
Delaware,  almost  doubling  its  volume.  Here  I  struck 
the  railroad,  the  forlorn  Midland,  and  here  another 
set  of  men  and  manners  cropped  out,  —  what  may 
be  called  the  railroad  conglomerate  overlying  this 
mountain  freestone. 

"  Where  did  you  steal  that  boat  ? "  and  "  What  you 
running  away  for  ?  "  greeted  me  from  a  hand-car  that 
went  by. 

I  paused  for  some  time  and  watched  the  fish  hawks, 
or  ospreys,  of  which  there  were  nearly  a  dozen  sailing 
about  above  the  junction  of  the  two  streams,  squeal- 
ing and  diving,  and  occasionally  striking  a  fish  on  the 
rifts.  I  am  convinced  that  the  fish  hawk  sometimes 
feeds  on  the  wing.  I  saw  him  do  it  on  this  and  on  an- 
other occasion.  He  raises  himself  by  a  peculiar  mo- 
tion, and  brings  his  head  and  his  talons  together,  and 
apparently  takes  a  bite  of  a  fish.  While  doing  this  his 
flight  presents  a  sharply  undulating  line;  at  the  crest 
of  each  rise  the  morsel  is  taken. 

In  a  long,  deep  eddy  under  the  west  shore  I  came 
upon  a  brood  of  wild  ducks,  the  hooded  merganser. 
The  young  were  about  half  grown,  but  of  course  en- 
tirely destitute  of  plumage.  They  started  off  at  great 
speed,  kicking  the  water  into  foam  behind  them,  the 
mother  duck  keeping  upon  their  flank  and  rear.  Near 
the  outlet  of  the  pool  I  saw  them  go  ashore,  and  I  ex- 
pected they  would  conceal  themselves  in  the  woods  j 
but  as  I  drev/  near  the  place  they  came  out,  and  I  saV 


34  A   SUMMER    BOATING    TRIP 

by  their  motions  they  were  going  to  make  a  rush  by 
me  up  stream.  At  a  signal  from  the  old  one,  on  they 
came,  and  passed  within  a  few  feet  of  me.  It  was 
almost  incredible,  the  speed  they  made.  Their  pink 
feet  were  like  swiftly  revolving  wheels  placed  a  little 
to  the  rear;  their  breasts  just  skimmed  the  surface, 
and  the  water  was  beaten  into  spray  behind  them. 
They  had  no  need  of  wings;  even  the  mother  bird  did 
not  use  hers;  a  steamboat  could  hardly  have  kept  up 
with  them.  I  dropped  my  paddle  and  cheered.  They 
kept  the  race  up  for  a  long  distance,  a«d  I  saw  them 
making  a  fresh  spirt  as  I  entered  upon  the  rift  and 
dropped  quickly  out  of  sight.  I  next  disturbed  an 
eagle  in  his  meditations  upon  a  dead  treetop,  and  a  cat 
sprang  out  of  some  weeds  near  the  foot  of  the  tree. 
Was  he  watching  for  puss,  while  she  was  watching 
for  some  smaller  prey  ? 

I  passed  Partridge  Island  —  which  is  or  used  to 
be  the  name  of  a  post-office  —  unwittingly,  and  en- 
camped for  the  night  on  an  island  near  Hawk's  Point. 
I  slept  in  my  boat  on  the  beach,  and  in  the  morning 
mv  locks  were  literally  wet  with  the  dews  of  the  night, 
and  my  blankets  too;  so  I  waited  for  the  sun  to  dry 
them.  As  I  was  gathering  driftwood  for  a  fire,  a  voice 
came  over  from  the  shadows  of  the  east  shore :  "  Seems 
to  me  you  lay  abed  pretty  late!" 

"I  call  this  early,"  I  rejoined,  glancing  at  the  sun 
"Wall,  it  may  be  airly  in  the  forenoon,  but  it  ain't 
airly  in  the  mornin';"  a  distinction  I  was  forced  to 
admit.  Before  I  had  reembarked  some  cows  came 
down  to  the  shore,  and  I  watched  them  ford  the  river 
to  the  island.  They  did  it  with  great  ease  and  preci- 
sion. I  was  told  they  will  sometimes,  during  high  water, 


A    SUMMER    BOATING    TRIP  35 

swim  over  to  the  islands,  striking  in  well  up  stream, 
and  swimming  diagonally  across.  At  one  point  some 
cattle  had  crossed  the  river,  and  evidently  got  into 
mischief,  for  a  large  dog  rushed  them  down  the  bank 
into  the  current,  and  worried  them  all  the  way  over, 
part  of  the  time  swimming  and  part  of  the  time  leap- 
ing very  high,  as  a  dog  will  in  deep  snow,  coming  down 
with  a  great  splash.  The  cattle  were  shrouded  with 
spray  as  they  ran,  and  altogether  it  was  a  novel  pic- 
ture. 

My  voyage  ended  that  forenoon  at  Hancock,  and 
was  crowned  by  a  few  idyllic  days  with  some  friends 
in  their  cottage  in  the  woods  by  Lake  Oquaga,  a  body 
of  crystal  water  on  the  hills  near  Deposit,  and  a  haven 
as  peaceful  and  perfect  as  voyager  ever  came  to  port 

ID.. 


CAMPING   WITH   THE    PRESIDENT 

At  the  time  I  made  the  trip  to  Yellowstone  Park 
with  President  Roosevelt  in  the  spring  of  1903,  I  pro- 
mised some  friends  to  wTite  up  my  impressions  of  the 
President  and  of  the  Park,  but  I  have  been  slow  in 
getting  around  to  it.  The  President  himself,  having 
the  absolute  leisure  and  peace  of  the  White  House, 
wrote  his  account  of  the  trip  nearly  two  years  ago! 
But  with  the  stress  and  strain  of  my  life  at  "  Slabsides," 
—  administering  the  affairs  of  so  many  of  the  wild 
creatures  of  the  woods  about  me,  —  I  have  not  till 
this  blessed  season  found  the  time  to  put  on  record 
an  account  of  the  most  interesting  thing  I  saw  in  that 
wonderful  land,  which,  of  course,  was  the  President 
himself. 

When  I  accepted  his  invitation  I  was  well  aware 
that  during  the  journey  I  should  be  in  a  storm  centre 
^ost  of  the  time,  which  is  not  always  a  pleasant  })ros- 
pect  to  a  man  of  my  habits  and  disposition.  The  Pre- 
sident himself  is  a  good  deal  of  a  storm,  —  a  man  of 
such  abounding  energy  and  ceaseless  activity  that 
he  sets  everything  in  motion  around  him  w^herever 
he  goes.  But  I  knew  he  would  be  pretty  well  occupied 
on  his  way  to  the  Park  in  speaking  to  eager  throngs 
and  in  receiving  personal  and  political  homage  in  the 
towns  and  cities  we  were  to  pass  through.  But  when 
all  this  was  over,  and  I  found  myself  with  him  in  the 
wilderness  of  the  Park,  with  only  the  superintendent 
and  a  few  attendants  to  help  take  up  his  tremendous 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  37 

personal  impact,  how  was  it  likely  to  fare  with  a  non- 
strenuous  person  like  myself,  I  asked  ?  I  had  visions 
of  snow  six  and  seven  feet  deep  where  traveling  could 
be  done  only  upon  snowshoes,  and  I  had  never  had  the 
things  on  my  feet  in  my  life.  If  the  infernal  fires  be- 
neath, that  keep  the  pot  boiling  so  out  there,  should 
melt  the  snows,  I  could  see  the  party  tearing  along 
on  horseback  at  a  wolf-hunt  pace  over  a  rough  coun- 
try; and  as  I  had  not  been  on  a  horse's  back  since  the 
President  was  born,  how  would  it  be  likely  to  fare  with 
me  there  ? 

I  had  known  the  President  several  years  before  he 
became  famous,  and  we  had  had  some  correspond- 
ence on  subjects  of  natural  history.  His  interest  in  such 
themes  is  always  very  fresh  and  keen,  and  the  main 
motive  of  his  visit  to  the  Park  at  this  time  was  to  see 
and  study  in  its  semi-domesticated  condition  the  great 
game  which  he  had  so  often  hunted  during  his  ranch 
days;  and  he  was  kind  enough  to  think  it  would  be  an 
additional  pleasure  to  see  it  with  a  nature-lover  like 
myself.  For  my  own  part,  I  knew  nothing  about  big 
game,  but  I  knew  there  was  no  man  in  the  country 
with  whom  I  should  so  like  to  see  it  as  Roosevelt. 

Some  of  our  newspapers  reported  that  the  Presi- 
dent intended  to  hunt  in  the  Park.  A  woman  in  Ver- 
mont wrote  me,  to  protest  against  the  hunting,  and 
hoped  I  would  teach  the  President  to  love  the  animals 
as  much  as  I  did,  —  as  if  he  did  not  love  them  much 
more,  because  his  love  is  founded  upon  knowledge, 
and  because  they  had  been  a  part  of  his  life.  She  did 
not  know  that  I  svas  then  cherishing  the  secret  hope 
that  I  might  be  allowed  to  shoot  a  cougar  or  bobcat; 
but  this  fun  did  not  come  to  me.   The  President  said, 


38  CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT 

"I  will  not  fire  a  gun  in  the  Park;  then  I  shall  have 
no  explanations  to  make."  Yet  once  I  did  hear  him 
say  in  the  wilderness,  "  I  feel  as  if  I  ought  to  keep  the 
camp  in  meat.  I  always  have.'*  I  regretted  that  he 
could  not  do  so  on  this  occasion. 

I  have  never  been  disturbed  by  the  President's 
hunting  trips.  It  is  to  such  men  as  he  that  the  big 
game  legitimately  belongs,  —  men  who  regard  it  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  naturalist  as  well  as  from  that 
of  the  sportsman,  who  are  interested  in  its  preserva- 
tion, and  who  share  with  the  world  the  delight  they 
experience  in  the  chase.  Such  a  hunter  as  Roosevelt 
is  as  far  removed  from  the  game-butcher  as  day  is 
from  night;  and  as  for  his  killing  of  the  "varmints," 

—  bears,  cougars,  and  bobcats,  —  the  fewer  of  these 
there  are,  the  better  for  the  useful  and  beautiful  game. 

The  cougars,  or  mountain  lions,  in  the  Park  cer- 
tainly needed  killing.  The  superintendent  reported 
that  he  had  seen  where  thev  had  slain  nineteen  elk, 
and  we  saw  where  they  had  killed  a  deer,  and  dragged 
its  body  across  the  trail.  Of  course,  the  President 
would  not  now  on  his  hunting  trips  shoot  an  elk  or  a 
deer  except  to  "keep  the  camp  in  meat,"  and  for  this 
purpose  it  is  as  legitimate  as  to  slay  a  sheep  or  a  steer 
for  the  table  at  home. 

We  left  Washington  on  April  1,  and  strung  several 
of  the  larger  Western  cities  on  our  thread  of  travel, 

—  Chicago,  Milwaukee,  Madison,  St.  Paul,  jNIinne- 
apolis,  —  as  well  as  many  lesser  towns,  in  each  of 
which  the  President  made  an  address,  sometimes 
brief,  on  a  few  occasions  of  an  hour  or  more. 

He  gave  himself  very  freely  and  heartily  to  the  peo- 
ple wherever  he  went.    He  could  easily  match  theii 


THE    YELLOWSTONE    RIVER    AND    CANYON. 

From  stereograph,  copyright  1904,  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  New  York. 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  39 

Western  cordiality  and  good-fellowship.  Wherever 
}iis  train  stopped,  crowds  soon  gathered,  or  had  al- 
ready gathered,  to  welcome  him.  His  advent  made 
a,  holiday  in  each  town  he  visited.  At  all  the  principal 
stops  the  usual  programme  was:  first,  his  reception 
by  the  committee  of  citizens  appointed  to  receive  him, 

—  they  usually  boarded  his  private  car,  and  were  one 
by  one  introduced  to  him;  then  a  drive  through  the 
town  with  a  concourse  of  carriages;  then  to  the  hall 
or  open  air  platform,  where  he  spoke  to  the  assembled 
throng;  then  to  lunch  or  dinner;  and  then  back  to  the 
train,  and  off  for  the  next  stop  —  a  round  of  hand- 
shaking, carriage-driving,  speech-making  each  day. 
He  usually  spoke  from  eight  to  ten  times  every  tw^enty- 
four  hours,  sometimes  for  only  a  few  minutes  from 
the  rear  platform  of  his  private  car,  at  others  for  an 
hour  or  more  in  some  large  hall.  In  Chicago,  Mil- 
waukee, and  St.  Paul,  elaborate  banquets  were  given 
him  and  his  party,  and  on  each  occasion  he  delivered 
a  carefully  prepared  speech  upon  questions  that  in- 
volved the  policy  of  his  administration.  The  throng 
that  greeted  him  in  the  vast  Auditorium  in  Chicago 

—  that  rose  and  waved  and  waved  again  —  was  one 
of  the  grandest  human  spectacles  I  ever  witnessed. 

In  Milwaukee  the  dense  cloud  of  tobacco  smoke 
that  presently  filled  the  large  hall  after  the  feasting 
was  over  was  enough  to  choke  any  speaker,  but  it  did 
not  seem  to  choke  the  President,  though  he  does  not 
use  tobacco  in  anv  form  himself;  nor  was  there  any- 
thing  foggy  about  his  utterances  on  that  occasion  upon 
legislative  control  of  the  trusts. 

In  St.  Paul  the  city  w^as  inundated  w^ith  humanity, 

—  a  vast  human  tide  that  left  the  middle  of  the  streets 


40  CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT 

bare  as  our  line  of  carriages  moved  slowly  along,  but 
that  rose  up  in  solid  walls  of  town  and  prairie  human- 
ity on  the  sidewalks  and  city  dooryards.  How  hearty 
and  happy  the  myriad  faces  looked!  At  one  point  I 
spied  in  the  throng  on  the  curbstone  a  large  silk  ban- 
ner that  bore  my  own  name  as  the  title  of  some  so- 
ciety. I  presently  saw  that  it  was  borne  by  half  a  dozen 
anxious  and  expectant-looking  schoolgirls  with  braids 
down  their  backs.  As  my  carriage  drew  near  them, 
they  pressed  their  way  through  the  throng,  and  threw 
a  large  bouquet  of  flowers  into  my  lap.  I  think  it  would 
be  hard  to  say  who  blushed  the  deeper,  the  girls  or 
myself.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  had  flowers 
showered  upon  me  in  public;  and  then,  maybe,  I  felt 
that  on  such  an  occasion  I  was  only  a  minor  side  issue, 
and  public  recognition  was  not  called  for.  But  the 
incident  pleased  the  President.  "I  saw  that  banner 
and  those  flowers,"  he  said  afterwards;  "and  I  was 
delighted  to  see  you  honored  that  way."  But  I  fear 
I  have  not  to  this  day  thanked  the  Monroe  School  of 
St.  Paul  for  that  pretty  attention. 

The  time  of  the  passing  of  the  presidential  train 
seemed  well  known,  even  on  the  Dakota  prairies.  At 
one  point  I  remember  a  little  brown  schoolhouse  stood 
not  far  off,  and  near  the  track  the  schoolma'am,  with 
her  flock,  drawn  up  in  line.  We  were  at  luncheon,  but 
the  President  caught  a  glimpse  ahead  through  the  win- 
dow, and  quickly  took  in  the  situation.  With  napkin 
in  hand,  he  rushed  out  on  the  platform  and  waved  to 
them.  "Those  children,"  he  said,  as  he  came  back, 
"wanted  to  see  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
and  I  could  not  disappoint  them.  They  may  never 
have  another  chance.  What  a  deep  impression  such 
things  make  when  we  are  young ! " 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  41 

At  some  point  in  the  Dakotas  we  picked  up  the 
former  foreman  of  his  ranch,  and  another  cowboy 
friend  of  the  old  davs,  and  they  rode  with  the  Presi- 
dent  in  his  private  car  for  several  hours.  He  was  as 
happy  with  them  as  a  schoolboy  ever  was  in  meeting 
old  chums.  He  beamed  with  delight  all  over.  The  life 
which  those  men  represented,  and  of  which  he  had 
himself  once  formed  a  part,  meant  so  much  to  him; 
it  had  entered  into  the  very  marrow  of  his  being,  and 
I  could  see  the  joy  of  it  all  shining  in  his  face  as  he  sat 
and  lived  parts  of  it  over  again  with  those  men  that 
day.  He  bubbled  with  laughter  continually.  The 
men,  I  thought,  seemed  a  little  embarrassed  by  his 
open-handed  cordiality  and  good-fellowship.  He  him- 
self evidently  wanted  to  forget  the  present,  and  to  live 
only  in  the  memory  of  those  wonderful  ranch  days,  — • 
that  free,  hardy,  adventurous  life  upon  the  plains.  It 
all  came  back  to  him  with  a  rush  when  he  found  him- 
self alone  with  these  heroes  of  the  rope  and  the  stirrup. 
How  much  more  keen  his  appreciation  was,  and  how 
much  quicker  his  memory,  than  theirs!  He  was  con- 
stantly recalling  to  their  minds  incidents  which  they 
had  forgotten,  and  the  names  of  horses  and  dogs  which 
had  escaped  them.  His  subsequent  life,  instead  of 
making  dim  the  memory  of  his  ranch  days,  seemed 
to  have  made  it  more  vivid  bv  contrast. 

When  they  had  gone,  I  said  to  him,  "  I  think  ycur 
affection  for  those  men  very  beautiful." 

"How  could  I  help  it?"  he  said. 

"Still,  few  men  in  your  station  could  or  would  go 
back  and  renew  such  friendships." 

"  Then  I  pity  them,"  he  replied. 

He  said  afterwards  that  his  ranch  life  had  been  the 


42  CAMPING   WITH   THE   PRESIDENT 

making  of  him.  It  had  built  him  up  and  hardened 
him  physically,  and  it  had  opened  his  eyes  to  the  wealth 
of  manly  character  among  the  plainsmen  and  cattle- 
men. 

Had  he  not  gone  West,  he  said,  he  neyer  would  have 
raised  the  Rough  Riders  Regiment;  and  had  he  not 
raised  that  regiment  and  gone  to  the  Cuban  War,  he 
would  not  haye  been  made  governor  of  New  York; 
and  had  not  this  happened,  the  pohticians  would  not 
unwittingly  have  made  his  rise  to  the  Presidency  so 
inevitable.  There  is  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  he  would 
have  got  there  some  day;  but  without  the  chain  of 
events  above  outlined,  his  rise  could  not  have  been  so 
rapid. 

Our  train  entered  the  Bad  Lands  of  North  Dakota 
in  the  early  evening  twilight,  and  the  President  stood 
on  the  rear  platform  of  his  car,  gazing  wistfully  upon 
the  scene.  "I  know  all  this  country  like  a  book,"  he 
said.  "I  have  ridden  over  it,  and  hunted  over  it,  and 
tramped  over  it,  in  all  seasons  and  weather,  and  it  looks 
like  home  to  me.  My  old  ranch  is  not  far  off.  We  shall 
soon  reach  Medora,  which  was  my  station."  It  was 
plain  to  see  that  that  strange,  forbidding-looking  land- 
scape, hills  and  valleys  to  Eastern  eyes  utterly  demoral- 
ized and  gone  to  the  bad,  —  flayed,  fantastic,  treeless, 
a  riot  of  naked  clay  slopes,  chimney-like  buttes,  and 
dry  coulees,  —  was  in  his  eyes  a  land  of  almost  pa- 
thetic interest.  There  were  streaks  of  good  pasturage 
here  and  there  where  his  cattle  used  to  graze,  and  where 
the  deer  and  the  pronghorn  used  to  linger. 

When  we  reached  Medora,  where  the  train  was 
scheduled  to  stop  an  hour,  it  was  nearly  dark,  but  the 
whole  town  and  country  round  had  turned  out  to  wel- 


CAMPING   WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  43 

come  their  old  townsman.  After  much  hand-shaking, 
the  committee  conducted  us  down  to  a  Httle  hall,  where 
the  President  stood  on  a  low  platform,  and  made  a 
short  address  to  the  standing  crowd  that  filled  the 
place.  Then  some  flashlight  pictures  were  taken  by 
the  local  photographer,  after  which  the  President 
stepped  down,  and,  while  the  people  filed  past  him, 
shook  hands  with  every  man,  woman,  and  child  of 
them,  calling  many  of  them  by  name,  and  greeting 
them  all  most  cordially.  I  recall  one  grizzled  old  fron- 
tiersman whose  hand  he  grasped,  calling  him  by  name, 
and  saying,  "How  well  I  remember  you!  You  once 
mended  my  gunlock  for  me,  —  put  on  a  new  hammer.'* 
-Yes,"  said  the  delighted  old  fellow;  "I'm  the  man, 
Mr.  President."  He  was  among  his  old  neighbors 
once  more,  and  the  pleasure  of  the  meeting  was  very 
obvious  on  both  sides.  I  heard  one  of  the  women  tell 
him  they  were  going  to  have  a  dance  presently,  and 
ask  him  if  he  would  not  stay  and  open  it!  The  Pre- 
sident laughingly  excused  himself,  and  said  his  train 
had  to  leave  on  schedule  time,  and  his  time  was 
nearly  up.  I  thought  of  the  incident  in  his  "Ranch 
Life,"  in  which  he  says  he  once  opened  a  cowboy  ball 
with  the  wife  of  a  Minnesota  man,  who  had  recently 
shot  a  bullying  Scotchman  who  danced  opposite.  He 
says  the  scene  reminded  him  of  the  ball  where  Bret 
Harte's  heroine  "  went  down  the  middle  with  the  man 
that  shot  Sandy  Magee." 

Before  reaching  Medora  he  had  told  me  many  an- 
ecdotes of  "  Roaring  Bill  Jones,"  and  had  said  I  should 
see  him.  But  it  turned  out  that  Roaring  Bill  had  be- 
gun to  celebrate  the  coming  of  the  President  too  early 
in  the  dav,  and  when  w^e  reached  Medora  he  was  not 


44  CAMPING   WITH   THE   PRESIDENT 

in  a  presentable  condition.    I  forget  now  how  he  hac 
earned  his  name,  but  no  doubt  he  had  come  honestly 
bv  it ;  it  was  a  part  of  his  history,  as  was  that  of  "  The 
Pike,"  "Cold  Turkey  Bill,"  "Hash  Knife  Joe,"  and 
other  classic  heroes  of  the  frontier. 

It  is  curious  how  certain  things  go  to  the  bad  in  the 
Far  West,  or  a  certain  proportion  of  them,  —  bad 
lands,  bad  horses,  and  bad  men.  And  it  is  a  degree 
of  badness  that  the  East  has  no  conception  of,  —  land 
that  looks  as  raw  and  unnatural  as  if  time  had  never 
laid  its  shaping  and  softening  hand  upon  it;  horses 
that,  when  mounted,  put  their  heads  to  the  ground 
and  their  heels  in  the  air,  and,  squealing  defiantly,  re- 
sort to  the  most  diabolically  ingenious  tricks  to  shake 
off  or  to  kill  their  riders;  and  men  who  amuse  them- 
selves in  bar-rooms  bv  shootins;  about  the  feet  of  a 
"tenderfoot"  to  make  him  dance,  or  who  ride  along 
the  street  and  shoot  at  every  one  in  sight.  Just  as  the 
old  plutonic  fires  come  to  the  surface  out  there  in  the 
Rockies,  and  hint  very  strongly  of  the  infernal  regions, 
so  a  kind  of  satanic  element  in  men  and  animals  — 
an  underlying  devilishness  —  crops  out,  and  we  have 
the  border  ruffian  and  the  bucking  broncho. 

The  President  told  of  an  Englishman  on  a  hunting 
trip  in  the  West,  who,  being  an  expert  horseman  at 
home,  scorned  the  idea  that  he  could  not  ride  any  of 
their  "grass-fed  ponies."  So  they  gave  him  a  bucking 
broncho.  He  was  soon  lying  on  the  ground,  much 
stunned.  When  he  could  speak,  he  said,  "I  should 
not  have  minded  him,  you  know,  hut  'e  'ides  'is  'cad.'' 

At  one  place  in  Dakota  the  train  stopped  to  take 
w^ater  while  we  were  at  lunch.  A  crowd  soon  gathered, 
and  the  President  went  out  to  greet  them.    We  could 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  45 

hear  his  voice,  and  the  cheers  and  laughter  of  the 
crowd.  And  then  we  heard  him  say,  "Well,  good-by, 
I  must  go  now."  Still  he  did  not  come.  Then  we  heard 
more  talking  and  laughing,  and  another  "good-by,'* 
and  yet  he  did  not  come.  Then  I  went  out  to  see  what 
had  happened.  I  found  the  President  down  on  the 
ground  shaking  hands  with  the  whole  lot  of  them. 
Some  one  had  reached  up  to  shake  his  hand  as  he 
Tvas  about  withdrawing,  and  this  had  been  followed  by 
such  eagerness  on  the  part  of  the  rest  of  the  people 
to  do  likewise,  that  the  President  had  instantly  got 
down  to  gratify  them.  Had  the  secret  service  men 
known  it,  they  would  have  been  in  a  pickle.  We  prob- 
ably have  never  had  a  President  who  responded  more 
freely  and  heartily  to  the  popular  liking  for  him  than 
Roosevelt.  The  crowd  always  seem  to  be  in  love  with 
him  the  moment  they  see  him  and  hear  his  voice.  And 
it  is  not  by  reason  of  any  arts  of  eloquence,  or  charm 
of  address,  but  by  reason  of  his  inborn  heartiness  and 
sincerity,  and  his  genuine  manliness.  The  people  feel 
his  quality  at  once.  In  Bermuda  last  winter  I  met  a 
Catholic  priest  who  had  sat  on  the  platform  at  some 
place  in  New  England  very  near  the  President  while 
he  was  speaking,  and  who  said,  "The  man  had  not 
spoken  three  minutes  before  I  loved  him,  and  had 
any  one  tried  to  molest  him,  I  could  have  torn  him  to 
pieces."  It  is  the  quality  in  the  man  that  instantly  in- 
spires such  a  liking  as  this  in  strangers  that  will,  I  am 
sure,  safeguard  him  in  all  public  places. 

I  once  heard  him  say  that  he  did  not  like  to  be  ad- 
dressed as  "His  Excellency;"  he  added  laughingly, 
"They  might  just  as  well  call  me  His  Transparency, 
for  all  I  care."    It  is  this  transparency,  this  direct, 


46  CAMPING   WITH   THE   PRESIDENT 

out-and-out,  unequivocal  character  of  him  that  is  one 
source  of  his  popularity.  The  people  do  love  trans- 
parency, —  all  of  them  but  the  politicians. 

A  friend  of  his  one  day  took  him  to  task  for  some 
mistake  he  had  made  in  one  of  his  appointments.  "  My 
dear  sir,"  replied  the  President,  "  where  you  know  of 
one  mistake  I  have  made,  I  know  of  ten."  How  such 
candor  must  make  the  politicians  shiver! 

I  have  said  that  I  stood  in  dread  of  the  necessity  of 
snowshoeing  in  the  Park,  and,  in  lieu  of  that,  of  horse- 
back riding.  Yet  when  we  reached  Gardiner,  the  en- 
trance to  the  Park,  on  that  bright,  crisp  April  morning, 
with  no  snow  in  sight  save  that  on  the  mountain-tops, 
and  found  Major  Pitcher  and  Captain  Chittenden  at 
the  head  of  a  squad  of  soldiers,  with  a  fine  saddler 
horse  for  the  President,  and  an  ambulance  drawn  by 
two  span  of  mules  for  me,  I  confess  that  I  experienced 
just  a  slight  shade  of  mortification.  I  thought  they 
might  have  given  me  the  option  of  the  saddle  or  the 
ambulance.  Yet  I  entered  the  vehicle  as  if  it  was  just 
what  I  had  been  expecting. 

The  President  and  his  escort,  with  a  cloud  of  cow- 
boys hovering  in  the  rear,  were  soon  off  at  a  lively 
pace,  and  my  ambulance  followed  close,  and  at  a  lively 
pace,  too;  so  lively  that  I  soon  found  myself  gripping 
the  seat  with  my  hands.  "Well,"  I  said  to  myself, 
"they  are  giving  me  a  regular  Western  send-ofi^;"  and 
I  thought,  as  the  ambulance  swayed  from  side  to  side, 
that  it  would  suit  me  just  as  well  if  my  driver  did  not 
try  to  keep  up  with  the  presidential  procession.  The 
driver  and  his  mules  were  shut  off  from  me  by  a  cur- 
tain, but,  looking  ahead  out  of  the  sides  of  the  vehicle, 
I  saw  two  good-sized  logs  lying  across  our  course. 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  47 

Surely,  I  thought  (and  barely  had  time  to  think),  he 
will  avoid  these.  But  he  did  not,  and  as  we  passed  over 
them  I  was  nearly  thrown  through  the  top  of  the 
ambulance.  "This  is  a  lively  send-off,"  I  said,  rub- 
bing my  bruises  with  one  ha?nd,  while  I  clung  to  the 
seat  with  the  other.  Presently  I  saw  the  cowboys 
scrambling  up  the  bank  as  if  to  get  out  of  our  way; 
then  the  President  on  his  fine  gray  stallion  scrambling 
up  the  bank  with  his  escort,  and  looking  ominously 
in  m}'  direction,  as  we  thundered  by. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "this  is  indeed  a  novel  ride;  for 
once  in  my  life  I  have  sidetracked  the  President  of 
the  United  States!  I  am  given  the  right  of  way  over 
all."  On  we  tore,  along  the  smooth,  hard  road,  and 
did  not  slacken  our  pace  till,  at  the  end  of  a  mile  or 
two,  we  began  to  mount  the  hill  toward  Fort  Yellow- 
stone. And  not  till  we  reached  the  fort  did  I  learn  that 
our  mules  had  run  away.  They  had  been  excited 
beyond  control  by  the  presidential  cavalcade,  and  the 
driver,  finding  he  could  not  hold  them,  had  aimed 
only  to  keep  them  in  the  road,  and  we  very  soon  had 
the  road  all  to  ourselves. 

Fort  Yellowstone  is  at  Mammoth  Hot  Springs,  where 
one  gets  his  first  view  of  the  characteristic  scenery  of 
the  Park,  —  huge,  boihng  springs  with  their  columns 
of  vapor,  and  the  first  characteristic  odors  which  sug- 
gest the  traditional  infernal  regions  quite  as  much  as 
the  boiling  and  steaming  water  does.  One  also  gets  a 
taste  of  a  much  more  rarefied  air  than  he  has  been  used 
to,  and  finds  himself  panting  for  breath  on  a  very 
slight  exertion.  The  Mammoth  Hot  Springs  have  built 
themselves  up  an  enormous  mound  that  stands  there 
above  the  village  on  the  side  of  the  mountain,  terraced 


48  CAMPING   WITH   THE   PRESIDENT 

and  scalloped  and  fluted,  and  suggesting  some  vitreous 
formation,  or  rare  carving  of  enormous,  many-colored 
precious  stones.  It  looks  quite  unearthly,  and,  though 
the  devil's  frying  pan,  and  ink  pot,  and  the  Stygian 
caves  are  not  far  off,  the  suggestion  is  of  something 
celestial  rather  than  of  the  nether  regions,  —  a  vision 
of  jasper  walls,  and  of  amethyst  battlements. 

With  Captain  Chittenden  I  climbed  to  the  top,  step- 
ping over  the  rills  and  creeks  of  steaming  hot  water, 
and  looked  at  the  marvelously  clear,  cerulean,  but 
boihng,  pools  on  the  summit.  The  water  seemed  as 
unearthly  in  its  beauty  and  purity  as  the  gigantic 
sculpturing  that  held  it. 

The  Stygian  caves  are  still  farther  up  the  mountain, 
■ —  little  pockets  in  the  rocks,  or  well-holes  in  the  ground 
at  your  feet,  filled  with  deadly  carbon  dioxide.  We 
saw  birds'  feathers  and  quills  in  all  of  them.  The 
birds  hop  into  them,  probably  in  quest  of  food  or 
seeking  shelter,  and  they  never  come  out.  We  saw  the 
body  of  a  martin  on  the  bank  of  one  hole.  Into  one 
we  sank  a  lighted  torch,  and  it  was  extinguished  as 
quickly  as  if  we  had  dropped  it  into  water.  Each  cave 
or  niche  is  a  death  valley  on  a  small  scale.  Near  by 
we  came  upon  a  steaming  pool,  or  lakelet,  of  an  acre 
or  more  in  extent.  A  pair  of  mallard  ducks  were  swim- 
ming about  in  one  end  of  it,  —  the  cool  end.  When  we 
approached,  they  swam  slowly  over  into  the  warmer 
water.  As  they  progressed,  the  w^ater  got  hotter  and 
hotter,  and  the  ducks'  discomfort  was  evident.  Pre- 
sently they  stopped,  and  turned  toward  us,  half  appeal- 
ingly,  as  I  thought.  They  could  go  no  farther;  would 
we  please  come  no  nearer  ?  As  I  took  another  step  or 
two,  up  they  rose  and  disappeared  over  the  hill.   Had 


CAMPING   WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  49 

they  gone  to  the  extreme  end  of  the  pool,  we  could 
have  had  boiled  mallard  for  dinner. 

Another  novel  spectacle  was  at  night,  or  near  sun- 
down, when  the  deer  came  down  from  the  hills  into 
the  streets,  and  ate  hay  a  few  yards  from  the  officers' 
quarters,  as  unconcernedly  as  so  many  domestic  sheep. 
This  they  had  been  doing  all  winter,  and  they  kept  it 
up  till  May,  at  times  a  score  or  more  of  them  profiting 
thus  on  the  government's  bounty.  When  the  sundown 
gun  was  fired  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  away,  they 
gave  a  nervous  start,  but  kept  on  with  their  feeding. 
The  antelope  and  elk  and  mountain  sheep  had  not 
yet  grown  bold  enough  to  accept  Uncle  Sam's  charity 
in  that  way. 

The  President  wanted  all  the  freedom  and  solitude 
possible  while  in  the  Park,  so  all  newspaper  men  and 
other  strangers  were  excluded.  Even  the  secret  service 
men  and  his  physician  and  private  secretaries  were 
left  at  Gardiner.  He  craved  once  more  to  be  alone  with 
nature;  he  was  evidently  hungry  for  the  wild  and  the 
aboriginal,  —  a  hunger  that  seems  to  come  upon  him 
regularly  at  least  once  a  year,  and  drives  him  forth  on 
his  hunting  trips  for  big  game  in  the  West. 

We  spent  two  weeks  in  the  Park,  and  had  fail 
weather,  bright,  crisp  days,  and  clear,  freezing  nights. 
The  first  week  we  occupied  three  camps  that  had  been 
prepared,  or  partly  prepared,  for  us  in  the  northeast 
corner  of  the  Park,  in  the  region  drained  by  the 
Gardiner  River,  where  there  was  but  little  snow,  and 
which  we  reached  on  horseback. 

The  second  week  we  visited  the  geyser  region, 
which  lies  a  thousand  feet  or  more  higher,  and  where 
the  snow  was  still  five  or  six  feet  deep.    This  part  of 


50  CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT 

the  journey  was  made  in  big  sleighs,  each  drawn  by 
two  span  of  horses. 

On  the  horseback  excursion,  which  involved  only 
about  fifty  miles  of  riding,  we  had  a  mule  pack  train, 
and  Sibley  tents  and  stoves,  with  quite  a  retinue  of 
camp  laborers,  a  lieutenant  and  an  orderly  or  two, 
and  a  guide,  Billv  Hofer. 

The  first  camp  was  in  a  wild,  rocky,  and  picturesque 
gorge  on  the  Yellowstone,  about  ten  miles  from  the 
fort.  A  slight  indisposition,  the  result  of  luxurious 
living,  with  no  wood  to  chop  or  to  saw,  and  no  hills  to 
climb,  as  at  home,  prevented  me  from  joining  the  party 
till  the  third  day.  Then  Captain  Chittenden  drove 
me  eight  miles  in  a  buggy.  About  two  miles  from  camp 
we  came  to  a  picket  of  two  or  three  soldiers,  where  my 
big  bay  was  in  waiting  for  me.  I  mounted  him  confi- 
dently, and,  guided  by  an  orderly,  took  the  narrow, 
winding  trail  toward  camp.  Except  for  an  hour's 
riding  the  day  before  with  Captain  Chittenden,  I  had 
not  been  on  a  horse's  back  for  nearly  fifty  years,  and 
I  had  not  spent  as  much  as  a  day  in  the  saddle  during 
my  youth.  That  first  sense  of  a  live,  spirited,  powerful 
animal  beneath  you,  at  whose  mercv  you  are,  —  you, 
a  pedestrian  all  your  days,  —  with  gullies  and  rocks 
and  logs  to  cross,  and  deep  chasms  opening  close 
beside  you,  is  not  a  little  disturbing.  But  my  big  bay 
did  his  part  well,  and  I  did  not  lose  my  head  or  my 
nerve,  as  we  cautiously  made  our  way  along:  the  nar^ 
row  path  on  the  side  of  the  steep  gorge,  with  a  foaming 
torrent  rushing  along  at  its  foot,  nor  yet  when  we  forded 
the  rocky  and  rapid  Yellowstone.  A  misstep  or  a 
stumble  on  the  part  of  my  steed,  and  probably  the  first 
bubble  of  my  confidence  would  have  been  shivered  at 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  51 

once;  but  this  did  not  happen,  and  in  due  time  we 
reached  the  group  of  tents  that  formed  the  President's 
camp. 

The  situation  was  deh'ghtful,  —  no  snow,  scattered 
pine  trees,  a  secluded  valley,  rocky  heights,  and  the 
clear,  ample,  trouty  waters  of  the  Yellowstone.  The 
President  was  not  in  camp.  In  the  morning  he  had 
stated  his  wish  to  go  alone  into  the  wilderness.  Major 
Pitcher  very  naturally  did  not  quite  like  the  idea,  and 
wished  to  send  an  orderly  with  him. 

"No,"  said  the  President.  "Put  me  up  a  lunch, 
and  let  me  go  alone.    I  will  surely  come  back." 

And  back  he  surely  came.  It  was  about  five  o'clock 
when  he  came  briskly  down  the  path  from  the  east 
to  the  camp.  It  came  out  that  he  had  tramped  about 
eighteen  miles  through  a  very  rough  country.  The  day 
before,  he  and  the  major  had  located  a  band  of  sev- 
eral hundred  elk  on  a  broad,  treeless  hillside,  and  his 
purpose  was  to  find  those  elk,  and  creep  up  on  them, 
and  eat  his  lunch  under  their  very  noses.  And  this  he 
did,  spending  an  hour  or  more  within  fifty  yards  of 
them.  He  came  back  looking  as  fresh  as  when  he 
started,  and  at  night,  sitting  before  the  big  camp  fire, 
related  his  adventure,  and  talked  with  his  usual  em- 
phasis and  copiousness  of  many  things.  He  told  me 
of  the  birds  he  had  seen  or  heard ;  among  them  he  had 
heard  one  that  was  new  to  him.  From  his  description 
I  told  him  I  thought  it  was  Townsend's  solitaire,  a 
bird  I  much  wanted  to  see  and  hear.  I  had  heard  the 
West  India  solitaire,  —  one  of  the  most  impressive 
songsters  I  ever  heard,  —  and  I  wished  to  compare  our 
Western  form  with  it. 

The  next  morning  we  set  out  for  our  second  camp. 


52  CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT 

ten  or  a  dozen  miles  away,  and  in  reaching  it  passed 
over  much  of  the  ground  the  President  had  traversed 
the  day  before.  As  we  came  to  a  wild,  rocky  place 
above  a  deep  chasm  of  the  river,  with  a  few  scattered 
pine  trees,  the  President  said,  "It  was  right  here  thai 
I  heard  that  strange  bird  song."  We  paused  a  moment. 
"And  there  it  is  now,"  he  exclaimed. 

Sure  enough,  there  was  the  solitaire  singing  from 
the  top  of  a  small  cedar,  —  a  bright,  animated,  eloquent 
song,  but  without  the  richness  and  magic  of  the  song 
of  the  tropical  species.  We  hitched  our  horses,  and 
followed  the  bird  up  as  it  flew  from  tree  to  tree.  The 
President  was  as  eager  to  see  and  hear  it  as  I  was.  It 
seemed  very  shy,  and  we  only  caught  glimpses  of  it. 
In  form  and  color  it  much  resembles  its  West  India 
cousin,  and  suggests  our  catbird.  It  ceased  to  sing 
when  we  pursued  it.  It  is  a  bird  found  only  in  the 
wilder  and  higher  parts  of  the  Rockies.  My  impression 
was  that  its  song  did  not  quite  merit  the  encomiums 
that  have  been  pronounced  upon  it. 

At  this  point,  I  saw  amid  the  rocks  my  first  and 
only  Rocky  Mountain  woodchucks,  and,  soon  after 
we  had  resumed  our  journey,  our  first  blue  grouse,  — 
a  number  of  them  like  larger  partridges.  Occasionally 
we  would  come  upon  black-tailed  deer,  standing  or 
lying  down  in  the  bushes,  their  large  ears  at  attention 
being  the  first  thing  to  catch  the  eye.  They  would 
often  allow  us  to  pass  within  a  few  rods  of  them  with- 
out showing  alarm.  Elk  horns  were  scattered  all  over 
this  part  of  the  Park,  and  we  passed  several  old  car- 
casses of  dead  elk  that  had  probably  died  a  natural 
death. 

In  a  grassy  bottom  at  the  foot  of  a  steep  hill,  while 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  53 

the  President  and  I  were  dismounted,  and  noting  the 
pleasing  picture  which  our  pack  train  of  fifteen  or 
l^^enty  mules  made  filing  along  the  side  of  a  steep 
grassy  slope,  —  a  picture  which  he  has  preserved  in 
his  late  volume,  "  Out-Door  Pastimes  of  an  American 

I  Hunter,"  —  our  attention  was  attracted  by  plaintive, 
musical,  bird-like  chirps  that  rose  from  the  grass 
about  us.  I  was  almost  certain  it  was  made  by  a  bird; 
the  President  was  of  like  opinion ;  and  I  kicked  about 
in  the  tufts  of  grass,  hoping  to  flush  the  bir(5.  Now 
here,  now  there,  arose  this  sharp,  but  bird-like  note. 
Finally  we  found  that  it  was  made  by  a  species  of 
gopher,  whose  holes  we  soon  discovered.  What  its 
specific  name  is  I  do  not  know,  but  it  should  be  called 
the  singing  gopher. 

Our  destination  this  day  was  a  camp  on  Cotton- 
wood Creek,  near  "  Hell  Roaring  Creek."  As  we  made 
our  way  in  the  afternoon  along  a  broad,  open,  grassy 
valley,  I  saw  a  horseman  come  galloping  over  the  hill 
to  our  right,  starting  up  a  band  of  elk  as  he  came;  riding 
across  the  plain,  he  wheeled  his  horse,  and,  with  the 
military  salute,  joined  our  party.  He  proved  to  be  a 
government  scout,  called  the  "Duke  of  Hell  Roar- 
ing," —  an  educated  officer  from  the  Austrian  army 
who,  for  some  unknown  reason,  had  exiled  himself 
here  in  this  out-of-the-way  part  of  the  world.  He  was 
a  man  in  his  prime,  of  fine,  military  look  and  bearing. 
After  conversing  a  few  moments  with  the  President 
and  Major  Pitcher,  he  rode  rapidly  away. 

i  Our  second  camp,  which  we  reached  in  mid-after- 
noon, was  in  the  edge  of  the  woods  on  the  banks  of  a 
fine,  large  trout  stream,  where  ice  and  snow  still  lin- 
gered in  patches.    I  tried  for  trout  in  the  head  of  a 


54  CAMPING  WITH   THE  PRESIDExNT 

large,  partly  open  pool,  but  did  not  get  a  rise;  too  much 
ice  in  the  stream,  I  concluded.  Very  soon  my  attention 
was  attracted  by  a  strange  note,  or  call,  in  the  spruce 
woods.  The  President  had  also  noticed  it,  and,  with 
me,  wondered  what  made  it.  Was  it  bird  or  beast? 
Billy  Hofer  said  he  thought  it  was  an  owl,  but  it  in  no 
way  suggested  an  owl,  and  the  sun  was  shining  brightly. 
It  was  a  sound  such  as  a  boy  might  make  by  blowing 
in  the  neck  of  an  empty  bottle.  Presently  we  heard 
it  beyond  us  on  the  other  side  of  the  creek,  which  was 
pretty  good  proof  that  the  creature  had  wings. 

"Let's  go  run  that  bird  down,"  said  the  President 
to  me. 

So  off  we  started  across  a  small,  open,  snow-streaked 
plain,  toward  the  woods  beyond  it.  We  soon  decided 
that  the  bird  was  on  the  top  of  one  of  a  group  of  tall 
spruces.  After  much  skipping  about  over  logs  and 
rocks,  and  much  craning  of  our  necks,  we  made  him 
out  on  the  peak  of  a  spruce.  I  imitated  his  call,  when 
he  turned  his  head  down  toward  us,  but  we  could  not 
make  out  what  he  was. 

"  W'hy  did  we  not  think  to  bring  the  glasses  ?  "  said 
the  President. 

"I  will  run  and  get  them,"  I  replied. 

"No,"  said  he,  "you  stay  here  and  keep  that  bird 
treed,  and  I  will  fetch  them." 

So  off  he  went  like  a  boy,  and  was  very  soon  back 
with  the  glasses.  W^e  quickly  made  out  that  it  was 
indeed  an  owl,  —  the  pigmy  owl,  as  it  turned  out,  — 
not  much  larger  than  a  bluebird.  I  think  the  Presi- 
dent was  as  pleased  as  if  we  had  bagged  some  big 
game.    He  had  never  seen  the  bird  before. 

Throughout  the  trip  I  found  his  interest  in  bird  life 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  55 

very  keen,  and  his  eye  and  ear  remarkably  quick  He 
usually  saw  the  bird  or  heard  its  note  as  quickly  as  I 
did,  —  and  I  had  nothing  else  to  think  about,  and 
had  been  teaching  my  eye  and  ear  the  trick  of  it  for 
over  fifty  years.  Of  course,  his  training  as  a  big-game 
hunter  stood  him  in  good  stead,  but  back  of  that  were 
his  naturalist's  instincts,  and  his  genuine  love  of  all 
forms  of  wild  life. 

I  have  been  told  that  his  ambition  up  to  the  time 
he  went  to  Harvard  had  been  to  be  a  naturalist,  but 
that  there  they  seem  to  have  convinced  him  that  all 
the  out-of-door  worlds  of  natural  historv  had  be^n 
conquered,  and  that  the  only  worlds  remaining  were 
in  the  laboratory,  and  to  be  won  with  the  microscope 
land  the  scalpel.  But  Roosevelt  was  a  man  made  for 
action  in  a  wide  field,  and  laboratory  conquests  could 
not  satisfy  him.  His  instincts  as  a  naturalist,  how- 
ever, lie  back  of  all  his  hunting  expeditions,  and,  in  a 
larger  measure,  I  think,  prompt  them.  Certain  it  is 
that  his  hunting  records  contain  more  live  natural 
history  than  any  similar  records  known  to  me,  unless 
it  be  those  of  Charles  St.  John,  the  Scotch  naturalist- 
Siportsman. 

The  Canada  jays,  or  camp-robbers,  as  they  are 
often  called,  soon  found  out  our  camp  that  afternoon, 
and  no  sooner  had  the  cook  begun  to  throw  out  peel- 
ings and  scraps  and  crusts  than  the  jays  began  to  carry 
them  off,  not  to  eat,  as  I  observed,  but  to  hide  them 
in  the  thicker  branches  of  the  spruce  trees.  How  tame 
they  were,  coming  within  three  or  four  yards  of  one! 
Why  this  species  of  jay  should  everywhere  be  so  fa- 
miliar, and  all  other  kinds  so  wild,  is  a  puzzle. 

In  the  morning,  as  we  rode  down  the  valley  toward 


56  CAMPING   WITH   THE   PRESIDENT 

our  next  camping-place,  at  Tower  Falls,  a  band  of 
elk  containing  a  hundred  or  more  started  along  the 
side  of  the  hill  a  few  hundred  yards  away.  I  was  some 
distance  behind  the  rest  of  the  party,  a.=  usual,  when 
I  saw  the  President  wheel  his  horse  off  to  the  left,  and, 
beckoning  to  me  to  follow,  start  at  a  tearing  pace  on 
the  trail  of  the  fleeing  elk.  He  afterw^ards  told  me 
that  he  wanted  me  to  get  a  good  view  of  those  elk  at 
close  range,  and  he  was  afraid  that  if  he  sent  the  major 
or  Hofer  to  lead  me,  I  would  not  get  it.  I  hurried  along 
as  fast  as  I  could,  which  was  not  fast;  the  w^ay  was 
rough,  —  logs,  rocks,  spring  runs,  and  a  tenderfoot 
rider. 

Now  and  then  the  President,  looking  back  and  see- 
ing what  slow  progress  I  was  making,  would  beckon 
to  me  impatiently,  and  I  could  fancy  him  saying,  "  If 
I  had  a  rope  around  him,  he  would  come  faster  than 
that!"  Once  or  twice  I  lost  sight  of  both  him  and  the 
elk;  the  altitude  was  great,  and  the  horse  was  laboring 
like  a  steam-engine  on  an  upgrade.  Still  I  urged  him 
on.  Presently,  as  I  broke  over  a  hill,  I  saw  the  Presi- 
dent pressing  the  elk  up  the  opposite  slope.  At  the 
brow  of  the  hill  he  stopped,  and  I  soon  joined  him. 
There  on  the  top,  not  fifty  yards  away,  stood  the  elk 
in  a  mass,  their  heads  toward  us  and  their  tongues 
hanging  out.  They  could  run  no  farther.  The  Presi- 
dent laughed  like  a  boy.  The  spectacle  meant  much 
more  to  him  than  it  did  to  me.  I  had  never  seen  a  wild 
elk  till  on  this  trip,  but  they  had  been  among  the  not- 
able game  that  he  had  hunted.  He  had  traveled  hun- 
dreds of  miles,  and  undergone  great  hardships,  to  get 
within  rifle  range  of  these  creatures.  Now  here  stood 
scores  of  them,  with  lolling  tongues,  begging  for  mercy. 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  57 

After  gazing  at  them  to  our  hearts'  content,  we 
turned  away  to  look  up  our  companions,  who  were 
nowhere  within  sight.  We  finally  spied  them  a  mile 
or  more  away,  and,  joining  them,  all  made  our  way 
to  an  elevated  plateau  that  commanded  an  open  land- 
scape three  or  four  miles  across.  It  was  high  noon, 
and  the  sun  shone  clear  and  warm.  From  this  lookout 
we  saw  herds  upon  herds  of.  elk  scattered  over  the 
slopes  and  gentle  valleys  in  front  of  us.  Some  were 
grazing,  some  were  standing  or  lying  upon  the  ground, 
or  upon  the  patches  of  snow.  Through  our  glasses  we 
counted  the  separate  bands,  and  then  the  numbers 
of  some  of  the  bands  or  groups,  and  estimated  that 
three  thousand  elk  were  in  full  view  in  the  landscape 
around  us.  It  was  a  notable  spectacle.  Afterward, 
in  Montana,  I  attended  a  council  of  Indian  chiefs  at 
one  of  the  Indian  agencies,  and  told  them,  through 
their  interpreter,  that  I  had  been  with  the  Great  Chief 
in  the  Park,  and  of  the  game  we  had  seen.  When  I 
told  them  of  these  three  thousand  elk  all  in  view  at 
once,  they  grunted  loudly,  whether  with  satisfaction 
or  with  incredulitv,  I  could  not  tell. 

In  the  midst  of  this  great  game  amphitheatre  we 
dismounted  and  enjoyed  the  prospect.  And  the  Pre- 
sident did  an  unusual  thing,  he  loafed  for  nearly  an 
hour,  —  stretched  himself  out  in  the  sunshine  upon 
a  flat  rock,  as  did  the  rest  of  us,  and,  I  hope,  got  a 
few  winks  of  sleep.  I  am  sure  I  did.  Little,  slender, 
striped  chipmunks,  about  half  the  size  of  ours,  were 
scurrying  about;  but  I  recall  no  other  wild  thing  save 
the  elk. 

From  here  we  rode  down  the  valley  to  our  third 
camp,  at  Tower  Falls,  stopping  on  the  way  to  eat  our 


58  CAMPING  WITH   THE   PRESIDENT 

luncheon  on  a  washed  boulder  beside  a  creek.  On 
this  ride  I  saw  my  first  and  only  badger;  he^stuck  his 
striped  head  out  of  his  hole  in  the  ground  only  a  few 
yards  away  from  us  as  we  passed. 

Our  camp  at  Tower  Falls  was  amid  the  spruces 
above  a  canon  of  the  Yellowstone,  five  or  six  hundred 
feet  deep.  It  was  a  beautiful  and  impressive  situation, 
—  shelter,  snugness,  even  cosiness,  looking  over  the 
brink  of  the  awful  and  the  terrifying.  With  a  run  and 
a  jump  I  think  one  might  have  landed  in  the  river  at 
the  bottom  of  the  great  abyss,  and  in  doing  so  might 
have  scaled  one  of  those  natural  obelisks  or  needles 
of  rock  that  stand  up  out  of  the  depths  two  or  three 
hundred  feet  high.  Nature  shows  you  what  an  enor- 
mous furrow  her  plough  can  open  through  the  strata 
when  moving  horizontally,  at  the  same  time  that  she 
shows  you  what  delicate  and  graceful  columns  her 
slower  and  gentler  aerial  forces  can  carve  out  of  the 
piled  strata.  At  the  Falls  there  were  two  or  three  of 
these  columns,  like  the  picket-pins  of  the  elder  gods. 

Across  the  caiion  in  front  of  our  camp,  upon  a  grassy 
plateau  which  was  faced  by  a  wall  of  trap  rock,  ap- 
parently thirty  or  forty  feet  high,  a  band  of  moun- 
tain sheep  soon  attracted  our  attention.  They  were 
within  long  rifle  range,  but  were  not  at  all  disturbed  by 
our  presence,  nor  had  they  been  disturbed  by  the  road- 
builders  who,  under  Captain  Chittenden,  were  con- 
structing a  government  road  along  the  brink  of  the 
canon.  We  speculated  as  to  whether  or  not  the  sheep 
could  get  down  the  almost  perpendicular  face  of  the 
chasm  to  the  river  to  drink.  It  seemed  to  me  impos- 
sible. Would  thev  trv  it  while  we  were  there  to  see  ? 
We  all  hoped  so;  and  sure  enough,  late  in  the  after- 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  59 

noon  the  word  came  to  our  tents  that  the  sheep  were 
coming  down.  The  President,  with  coat  off  and  a 
towel  around  his  neck,  was  shaving.  One  side  of  his 
face  was  half  shaved,  and  the  other  side  lathered. 
Hofer  and  I  started  for  a  point  on  the  brink  of  the 
canon  where  we  could  have  a  better  view. 

"I  must  see  that,"  said  the  President.  "The  shav- 
ing can  wait,  and  the  sheep  won't=" 

So  on  he  came,  accoutred  as  he  was,  —  coatless, 
hatless,  but  not  latherless,  nor  towelless.  Like  the 
rest  of  us,  his  only  thought  was  to  see  those  sheep. 
With  glasses  in  hand,  we  watched  them  descend  those 
perilous  heights,  leaping  from  point  to  point,  finding  a 
foothold  where  none  appeared  to  our  eyes,  loosening 
fragments  of  the  crumbling  rocks  as  they  came,  now 
poised  upon  some  narrow  shelf  and  preparing  for  the 
next  leap,  zig-zagging  or  plunging  straight  down  till 
the  bottom  was  reached,  and  not  one  accident  or  mis- 
step amid  all  that  insecure  footing.  I  think  the  Presi- 
dent was  the  most  pleased  of  us  all;  he  laughed  with 
the  delight  of  it,  and  quite  forgot  his  need  of  a  hat 
and  coat  till  I  sent  for  them. 

In  the  night  we  heard  the  sheep  going  back;  we 
could  tell  by  the  noise  of  the  falling  ^tones.  In  the 
morning  I  confidently  expected  to  see  some  of  them 
lying  dead  at  the  foot  of  the  cliffs,  but  there  they  all 
were  at  the  top  once  more,  apparently  safe  and  sound. 
They  do,  how^ever,  occasionally  meet  with  accidents 
in  their  perilous  climbing,  and  their  dead  bodies  have 
been  found  at  the  foot  of  the  rocks.  Doubtless  some 
point  of  rock  to  which  they  had  trusted  gave  way,  and 
crushed  them  in  the  descent,  or  fell  upon  those  in  the 
lead. 


60  CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT 

The  next  dav,  while  the  rest  of  us  went  fishing  for 
trout  in  the  Yellowstone,  three  or  four  miles  above 
camp,  over  the  roughest  trail  that  we  had  yet  traversed 
on  horseback,  the  President,  who  never  fishes  unless 
put  to  it  for  meat,  went  oft'  alone  again  with  his  lunch 
in  his  pocket,  to  stalk  those  sheep  as  he  had  stalked 
the  elk,  and  to  feel  the  old  sportsman's  thrill  without 
the  use  of  firearms.  To  do  this  involved  a  tramp  of 
eight  or  ten  miles  down  the  river  to  a  bridge  and  up 
the  opposite  bank.  This  he  did,  and  ate  his  lunch  near 
the  sheep,  and  was  back  in  camp  before  we  were. 

We  took  some  large  cut-throat  trout,  as  they  are 
called,  from  the  yellow  mark  across  their  throats,  and 
I  saw  at  short  range  a  black-tailed  deer  bounding 
along  in  that  curious,  stiff-legged,  mechanical,  yet 
springy  manner,  apparently  all  four  legs  in  the  air  at 
once,  and  all  four  feet  reaching  the  ground  at  once, 
affording  a  very  singular  spectacle. 

We  spent  two  nights  in  our  Tower  Falls  camp,  and 
on  the  morning  of  the  third  day  set  out  on  our  return 
to  Fort  Yellowstone,  pausing  at  Yancey's  on  out  way, 
and  exchanging  greetings  with  the  old  frontiersman, 
who  died  a  few  weeks  later. 

While  in  camp  we  always  had  a  big  fire  at  night  in 
the  open  near  the  tents,  and  around  this  we  sat  upon 
logs  or  camp-stools,  and  listened  to  the  President's 
talk.  What  a  stream  of  it  he  poured  forth!  and  what 
a  varied  and  picturesque  stream !  —  anecdote,  history, 
science,  politics,  adventure,  literature;  bits  of  his 
experience  as  a  ranchman,  hunter,  Rough  Rider, 
legislator.  Civil  Service  commissioner,  police  commis- 
sioner, governor,  president,  —  the  frankest  confes- 
sions, the  most  telling  criticisms,  happy  characteriza- 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  Gl 

tlons  of  prominent  political  leaders,  or  foreign  rulers, 
or  members  of  his  own  Cabinet;  always  surprising  by 
his  candor,  astonishing  by  his  memory,  and  divertino- 
by  his  humor.  His  reading  has  been  very  wide,  and  he 
has  that  rare  type  of  memory  which  retains  details  as 
well  as  mass  and  generalities.  One  night  something 
started  him  off  on  ancient  history,  and  one  would  have 
thought  he  was  just  fresh  from  his  college  course  in 
history,  the  dates  and  names  and  events  came  so 
readily.  Another  time  he  discussed  palaeontology,  and 
rapidly  gave  the  outlines  of  the  science,  and  the  main 
facts,  as  if  he  had  been  reading  up  on  the  subject  that 
very  day.  He  sees  things  as  wholes,  and  hence  the 
relation  of  the  parts  comes  easy  to  him. 

At  dinner,  at  the  White  House,  the  night  before  we 
started  on  the  expedition,  I  heard  him  talking  with  a 
guest,  —  an  officer  of  the  British  army,  who  was  just 
back  from  India.  And  the  extent  and  variety  of  his 
information  about  India  and  Indian  history  and  the 
relations  of  the  British  government  to  it  were  extraor- 
dinary. It  put  the  British  major  on  his  mettle  to  keep 
pace  with  him. 

One  night  in  camp  he  told  us  the  story  of  one  of  his 
Rough  Riders  who  had  just  written  him  from  some 
place  in  Arizona.  The  Rough  Riders,  wherever  they 
are  now,  look  to  him  in  time  of  trouble.  This  one  had 
come  to  grief  in  Arizona.  He  was  in  jail.  So  he  wrote 
the  President,  and  his  letter  ran  something  like  this :  — 

"  Dear  Colonel,  —  I  am  in  trouble.  I  shot  a  lady 
in  the  eye,  but  I  did  not  intend  to  hit  the  lady;  I  was 
shooting  at  my  wife." 

And  the  presidential  laughter  rang  out  over  the 
treetops.    To  another  Rough  Rider,  who  was  in  jaii. 


62  CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT 

accused  of  horse  stealing,  he  had  loaned  two  hundred 
dollars  to  pay  counsel  on  his  trial,  and,  to  his  surprise, 
in  due  time  the  money  came  back.  The  Ex-Rough 
wrote  that  his  trial  never  came  off.  "  We  elected  our 
district  attorney:''  and  the  laughter  again  sounded, 
and  drowned  the  noise  of  the  brook  near  by. 

On  another  occasion  we  asked  the  President  if  he 
was  ever  molested  by  any  of  the  "bad  men"  of  the 
frontier,  with  whom  he  had  often  come  in  contact. 
"Onlv   once,"   he   said.     The    cowbovs    had   always 

C/' 

treated  him  with  the  utmost  courtesy,  both  on  the 
round-up  and  in  camp ;  "  and  the  few  real  desperadoes 
I  have  seen  were  also  perfectly  polite."  Once  only 
was  he  maliciously  shot  at,  and  then  not  by  a  cowboy 
nor  a  bona  fide  *'  bad  man,"  but  by  a  **  broad-hatted 
ruffian  of  a  cheap  and  commonplace  type."  He  had 
been  compelled  to  pass  the  night  at  a  little  frontier 
hotel  where  the  bar-room  occupied  the  whole  lower 
floor,  and  was,  in  consequence,  the  only  place  where 
the  guests  of  the  hotel,  whether  drunk  or  sober,  could 
sit.  As  he  entered  the  room,  he  saw  that  evers^  man 
there  was  being  terrorized  by  a  half-drunken  ruffian 
who  stood  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  with  a  revolver 
in  each  hand,  compelling  different  ones  to  treat. 

"I  went  and  sat  down  behind  the  stove,"  said  the 
President,  "as  far  from  him  as  I  could  get;  and  hoped 
to  escape  his  notice.  The  fact  that  I  wore  glasses, 
together  w^ith  my  evident  desire  to  avoid  a  fight, 
apparently  gave  him  the  impression  that  I  could  be 
imposed  upon  w^ith  impunity.  He  very  soon  ap- 
proached me,  flourishing  his  two  guns,  and  ordered 
me  to  treat.  I  made  no  reply  for  some  moments,  when 
the  fellow  became  so  threatening  that  I  saw  something 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  63 

had  to  be  done.  The  crowd,  mostly  sheep-herders  and 
small  grangers,  sat  or  stood  back  against  the  wall, 
afraid  to  move.  I  was  unarmed,  and  thought  rapidly. 
Saying, '  Well,  if  I  must,  I  must,'  I  got  up  as  if  to  walk 
around  him  to  the  bar,  then,  as  I  got  opposite  him,  I 
wheeled  and  fetched  him  as  heavy  a  blow  on  the  chin- 
point  as  I  could  strike.  He  went  down  like  a  steer 
before  the  axe,  firing  both  guns  into  the  ceiling  as  he 
went.  I  jumped  on  him,  and,  with  my  knees  on  his 
chest,  disarmed  him  in  a  hurry.  The  crowd  was  then 
ready  enough  to  help  me,  and  we  hog-tied  him  and  put 
him  in  an  outhouse."  The  President  alludes  to  this 
incident  in  his  "Ranch  Life,"  but  does  not  give  the 
details.   It  brings  out  his  mettle  very  distinctly. 

He  told  us  in  an  amused  way  of  the  attempts  of  his 
political  opponents  at  Albany,  during  his  early  career 
as  a  member  of  the  ^Assembly,  to  besmirch  his  char- 
acter. His  outspoken  criticisms  and  denunciations 
had  become  intolerable  to  them,  so  they  laid  a  trap 
for  him,  but  he  was  not  caught.  His  innate  rectitude 
and  instinct  for  the  right  course  saved  him,  as  it  has 
saved  him  many  times  since.  I  do  not  think  that  in  any 
emergency  he  has  to  debate  with  himself  long  as  to 
the  right  course  to  be  pursued;  he  divines  it  by  a  kind 
of  infallible  instinct.  His  motives  are  so  simple  and 
direct  that  he  finds  a  straight  and  easy  course  where 
another  man,  whose  eye  is  less  single,  would  flounder 
and  hesitate. 

The  President  unites  in  himself  powers  and  qualities 
that  rarelv  go  together.  Thus,  he  has  both  physical 
and  moral  courage  in  a  degree  rare  in  history.  He  can 
stand  calm  and  unflinching  in  the  path  of  a  charging 
grizzly,  and  he  can  confront  with  equal  coolness  and 


64  CAMPING   WITH  THE  PRESIDENT 

determination  the  predaceous  corporations  and  mone}^ 
powers  of  the  country. 

He  unites  the  quahties  of  the  man  of  action  with 
those  of  the  scholar  and  WTiter,  —  another  very  rare 
combination.  He  unites  the  instincts  and  accom- 
phshments  of  the  best  breeding  and  culture  with  the 
broadest  democratic  sympathies  and  affiliations.  He  is 
as  happy  with  a  frontiersman  like  Seth  Bullock  as  with 
a  fellow  Harvard  man,  and  Seth  Bullock  is  happy,  too. 

He  unites  great  austerity  with  great  good-nature. 
He  unites  great  sensibility  with  great  force  and  will 
power.  He  loves  solitude,  and  he  loves  to  be  in  the 
thick  of  the  fight.  His  love  of  nature  is  equaled  only 
by  his  love  of  the  ways  and  marts  of  men. 

He  is  doubtless  the  most  vital  man  on  the  continent, 
if  not  on  the  planet,  to-day.  He  is  many-sided,  and 
every  side  throbs  with  his  tremendous  life  and  energy ; 
the  pressure  is  equal  all  around.  His  interests  are  as 
keen  in  natural  history  as  in  economics,  in  literature 
as  in  statecraft,  in  the  young  poet  as  in  the  old  soldier, 
in  preserving  peace  as  in  preparing  for  w^ar.  And  he 
can  turn  all  his  great  power  into  the  new  channel  on 
the  instant.  His  interest  in  the  whole  of  life,  and  in  the 
whole  life  of  the  nation,  never  flags  for  a  moment. 
His  activity  is  tireless.  All  the  relaxation  he  needs 
or  craves  is  a  change  of  work.  He  is  like  the  farmer's 
fields,  that  only  need  a  rotation  of  crops.  I  once  heard 
him  say  that  all  he  cared  about  being  President  was 
just  "the  big  work." 

During  this  tour  through  the  West,  lasting  over  two 
months,  he  made  nearly  three  hundred  speeches;  and 
yet  on  his  return  Mrs.  Roosevelt  told  me  he  looked  as 
fresh  and  unworn  as  when  he  left  home. 


SUNRISE    IN    YELLOWSTONE    PARK. 

From  stereograph,  copyright  1904,  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  New  York. 


CAMPING  WITH  THE  PRESIDENT  65 

We  went  up  into  the  big  geyser  region  with  the  big 
sleighs,  each  drawn  by  four  horses.  A  big  snow-bank 
had  to  be  shoveled  through  for  us  before  we  got  to  the 
Golden  Gate,  two  miles  above  Mammoth  Hot  Springs, 
Beyond  that  we  were  at  an  altitude  of  about  eight 
thousand  feet,  on  a  fairly  level  course  that  led  now 
through  woods,  and  now  through  open  country,  with 
the  snow  of  a  uniform  depth  of  four  or  five  feet,  except 
as  we  neared  the  "formations,"  where  the  subterranean 
warmth  kept  the  ground  bare.  The  roads  had  been 
broken  and  the  snow  packed  for  us  by  teams  from  the 
fort,  otherwise  the  journey  would  have  been  impossible. 

The  President  always  rode  beside  the  driver.  P>om 
his  youth,  he  said,  this  seat  had  always  been  the  most 
desirable  one  to  him.  When  the  sleigh  would  strike 
the  bare  ground,  and  begin  to  drag  heavily,  he  would 
bound  out  nimbly  and  take  to  his  heels,  and  then  all 
three  of  us  —  ]\Iajor  Pitcher,  Mr.  Childs,  and  myself  — ■ 
would  follow  suit,  sometimes  reluctantly  on  my  part. 
Walking  at  that  altitude  is  no  fun,  especially  if  you  try 
to  keep  pace  with  such  a  walker  as  the  President  is. 
But  he  could  not  sit  at  his  ease  and  let  those  horses 
drag  him  in  a  sleigh  over  bare  ground.  When  snow 
was  reached,  we  would  again  quickly  resume  our  seats. 

xAs  one  nears  the  geyser  region,  he  gets  the  impression 
from  the  columns  of  steam  going  up  here  and  there 
in  the  distance  —  now  from  behind  a  piece  of  woods, 
now  from  out  a  hidden  valley  —  that  he  is  approaching 
a  manufacturing  centre,  or  a  railroad  terminus.  And 
when  he  begins  to  hear  the  hoarse  snoring  of  "  Roaring 
Mountain,"  the  illusion  is  still  more  complete.  At 
Norris's  there  is  a  big  vent  where  the  steam  comes 
tearing  out  of  a  recent  hole  in  the  ground  with  terrific 


66         CAMPING   WITH   THE    PRESIDENT 

force.   Huge  mounds  of  ice  had  formed  from  the  con- 
gealed vapor  all  around  it,  some  of  them  very  striking. 

The  novelty  of  the  geyser  region  soon  wears  off. 
Steam  and  hot  water  are  steam  and  hot  water  the 
world  over,  and  the  exhibition  of  them  here  did  not 
differ,  except  in  volume,  from  what  one  sees  by  his 
own  fireside.  The  "Growler"  is  only  a  boihng  tea- 
kettle on  a  large  scale,  and  "  Old  Faithful "  is  as  if  the 
lid  were  to  fly  off,  and  the  whole  contents  of  the  kettle 
should  be  thrown  high  into  the  air.  To  be  sure,  boiling 
lakes  and  steaming  rivers  are  not  common,  but  the 
new  features  seemed,  somehow,  out  of  place,  and  as 
if  nature  had  made  a  mistake.  One  disliked  to  see  so 
much  good  steam  and  hot  water  going  to  waste;  whole 
towns  might  be  warmed  by  them,  and  big  wheels  made 
to  go  round.  I  wondered  that  they  had  not  piped  them 
into  the  big  hotels  which  they  opened  for  us,  and  which 
were  warmed  by  wood  fires. 

At  Norris's  the  big  room  that  the  President  and 
I  occupied  was  on  the  ground  floor,  and  was  heated 
by  a  huge  box  stove.  As  we  entered  it  to  go  to  bed, 
the  President  said,  "  Oom  John,  don't  you  think  it 
is  too  hot  here  ?  " 

"  I  certainly  do,"  I  replied. 

"Shall  I  open  the  window?" 

"That  will  just  suit  me."  And  he  threw  the  sash, 
which  came  down  to  the  floor,  all  the  way  up,  making 
an  opening  like  a  doorway.  The  night  was  cold,  but 
neither  of  us  suffered  from  the  abundance  of  fresh 
air.  The  caretaker  of  the  building  was  a  big  Swede 
called  Andy.  In  the  morning  Andy  said  that  beat 
him:  "There  was  the  President  of  the  United  States 
sleeping  in  that  room,  with  the  window  open  to  the 


CAMPING   WITH   THE   PRESIDENT  67 

floor,  and  not  so  much  as  one  soldier  outside  on 
guard." 

The  President  had  counted  much  on  seeing  the 
bears  that  in  summer  board  at  the  Fountain  Hotel, 
but  they  were  not  yet  out  of  their  dens.  We  saw  the 
track  of  only  one,  and  he  was  not  making  for  the  hotel. 
At  all  the  formations  where  the  geysers  are,  the  ground 
was  bare  over  a  large  area.  I  even  saw  a  wild  flower  — • 
an  early  buttercup,  not  an  inch  high  —  in  bloom. 
This  seems  to  be  the  earliest  wild  flower  in  the  Rockies. 
It  is  the  only  fragrant  buttercup  I  know. 

As  we  were  riding  along  in  our  big  sleigh  toward 
the  Fountain  Hotel,  the  President  suddenly  jumped 
out,  and,  with  his  soft  hat  as  a  shield  to  his  hand, 
captured  a  mouse  that  was  running  along  over  the 
ground  near  us.  He  wanted  it  for  Dr.  Merriam,  on 
the  chance  that  it  might  be  a  new  species.  While  we 
all  went  fishing  in  the  afternoon,  the  President  skinned 
his  mouse,  and  prepared  the  pelt  to  be  sent  to  Washing- 
ton. It  was  done  as  neatly  as  a  professed  taxidermist 
would  have  done  it.  This  was  the  only  game  the 
President  killed  in  the  Park.  In  relating  the  incident 
to  a  reporter  while  I  was  in  Spokane,  the  thought 
occurred  to  me.  Suppose  he  changes  that  u  to  an  o, 
and  makes  the  President  capture  a  moose,  what  a 
predicament  I  shall  be  in!  Is  it  anything  more  than 
ordinary  newspaper  enterprise  to  turn  a  mouse  into  a 
moose  ?  But,  luckily  for  me,  no  such  metamorphosis 
happened  to  that  little  mouse.  It  turned  out  not  to  be 
a  new  species,  as  it  should  have  been,  but  a  species 
new  to  the  Park. 

I  caught  trout  that  afternoon,  on  the  edge  of  steam- 
ing pools  in  the  Madison  River,  that  seemed  to  my 


68         CAMPING    WITH    THE    PRESIDENT 

hand  almost  blood-warm.  I  suppose  thev  found  bet- 
ter feeding  where  the  water  was  warm.  On  the  table 
they  did  not  compare  with  our  Eastern  brook  trout. 

I  was  pleased  to  be  told  at  one  of  the  hotels  that 
thev  had  kalsomined  some  of  the  rooms  with  material 
from  one  of  the  devil's  paint-pots.  It  imparted  a  soft, 
delicate,  pinkish  tint,  not  at  all  suggestive  of  things 
Satanic. 

One  afternoon  at  Norris's,  the  President  and  I  took 
a  walk  to  observe  the  birds.  In  the  grove  about  the 
barns  there  was  a  great  number,  the  most  attractive 
to  me  being  the  mountain  bluebird.  These  birds  we 
saw  in  all  parts  of  the.  Park,  and  at  Norris's  there  was 
an  unusual  number  of  them.  How  blue  they  were,  — 
breast  and  all.  In  voice  and  manner  thev  were  almost 
identical  with  our  bluebird.  The  Western  purple  finch 
was  abundant  here  also,  and  juncos,  and  several  kinds 
of  sparrows,  with  an  occasional  Western  robin.  A 
pair  of  wild  geese  were  feeding  in  the  low,  marshy 
ground  not  over  one  hundred  yards  from  us,  but  when 
we  tried  to  approach  nearer  they  took  wing.  A  few 
geese  and  ducks  seem  to  winter  in  the  Park. 

The  second  morning  at  Norris's,  one  of  our  team- 
sters, George  Marvin,  suddenly  dropped  dead  from 
some  heart  affection,  just  as  he  had  finished  caring  for 
his  team.  It  was  a  great  shock  to  us  all.  I  never  saw 
a  better  man  with  a  team  than  he  was.  I  had  ridden 
on  the  seat  beside  him  all  the  day  previous.  On  one 
of  the  "  formations  "  our  teams  had  got  mired  in  the 
soft,  putty-like  mud,  and  at  one  time  it  looked  as  if 
they  could  never  extricate  themselves,  and  I  doubt 
if  they  could  have,  had  it  not  been  for  the  skill  with 
which  Marvin   managed  them.    We  started   for  the 


CAMPING    WITH    THE    PRESIDENT  60 

Grand  Canon  up  the  Yellowstone  that  morning,  and, 
in  order  to  give  myself  a  walk  over  the  crisp  snow  in 
the  clear,  frosty  air,  I  set  out  a  little  while  in  advance 
of  the  teams.  x\s  I  did  so,  I  saw  the  President,  accom- 
panied by  one  of  the  teamsters,  walking  hurriedly 
toward  the  barn  to  pay  his  last  respects  to  the  body 
of  Marvin.  After  we  had  returned  to  Mammoth  Hot 
Springs,  he  made  inquiries  for  the  young  woman  to 
whom  he  had  been  told  that  Marvin  was  engaged  to 
be  married.  He  looked  her  up,  and  sat  a  long  time 
with  her  in  her  home,  offering  his  sympathy,  and  speak- 
ing words  of  consolation.  The  act  shows  the  depth 
and  breadth  of  his  humanity. 

At  the  Caiion  Hotel  the  snow  was  very  deep,  and 
had  become  so  soft  from  the  warmth  of  the  earth  be- 
neath, as  well  as  from  the  sun  above,  that  we  could 
only  reach  the  brink  of  the  Canon  on  skis.  The  Presi- 
dent and  Major  Pitcher  had  used  skis  before,  but  I 
had  not,  and,  starting  out  without  the  customary  pole, 
I  soon  came  to  grief.  The  snow  gave  way  beneath 
me,  and  I  was  soon  in  an  awkward  predicament. 
The  more  I  struggled,  the  lower  my  head  and  shoul- 
ders went,  till  only  my  heels,  strapped  to  those  long 
timbers,  protruded  above  the  snow.  To  reverse  my 
position  was  impossible  till  some  one  came,  and  reached 
me  the  end  of  a  pole,  and  pulled  me  upright.  But  I 
very  soon  got  the  hang  of  the  things,  and  the  Presi- 
dent and  I  quickly  left  the  superintendent  behind. 
I  think  I  could  have  passed  the  President,  but  my  man- 
ners forbade.  He  was  heavier  than  I  was,  and  broke 
in  more.  When  one  of  his  feet  would  go  down  half  a 
yard  or  more,  I  noted  with  admiration  the  skilled 
diplomacy  he  displayed  in  extricating  it.    The  tend- 


70         CAMPING   WITH    THE    PRESIDENT 

ency  of  my  skis  was  all  the  time  to  diverge,  and  each 
to  go  off  at  an  acute  angle  to  my  main  course,  and  I 
had  constantly  to  be  on  the  alert  to  check  this  tend- 
ency. 

Paths  had  been  shoveled  for  us  along  the  brink  of 
the  Canon,  so  that  we  got  the  usual  views  from  the 
different  points.  The  Canon  was  nearly  free  from 
snow,  and  was  a  grand  spectacle,  by  far  the  grandest 
to  be  seen  in  the  Park.  The  President  told  us  that 
once,  when  pressed  for  meat,  while  returning  through 
here  from  one  of  his  hunting  trips,  he  had  made  his 
way  down  to  the  river  that  we  saw  rushing  along 
beneath  us,  and  had  caught  some  trout  for  dinner. 
Necessity  alone  could  induce  him  to  fish. 

Across  the  head  of  the  Falls  there  was  a  bridge  of 
snow  and  ice,  upon  which  we  were  told  that  the  coyotes 
passed.  As  the  season  progressed,  there  would  come 
a  day  when  the  bridge  would  not  be  safe.  It  would 
be  interesting  to  know  if  the  coyotes  knew  when  this 
time  arrived. 

The  only  live  thing  we  saw  in  the  Canon  was  an 
osprey  perched  upon  a  rock  opposite  us. 

Near  the  falls  of  the  Yellowstone,  as  at  other  places 
we  had  visited,  a  squad  of  soldiers  had  their  winter 
quarters.  The  President  always  called  on  them,  looked 
over  the  books  they  had  to  read,  examined  their  house- 
keeping arrangements,  and  conversed  freely  with 
them. 

In  front  of  the  hotel  were  some  low  hills  separated 
by  gentle  valleys.  At  the  President's  suggestion,  he 
and  I  raced  on  our  skis  down  those  inclines.  We  had 
only  to  stand  up  straight,  and  let  gravity  do  the  rest. 
As  we  were  going  swiftly  down  the  side  of  one  of  the 


CAMPING    WITH   THE   PRESIDENT  71 

hills,  I  saw  out  of  the  corner  of  my  eye  the  President 
taking  a  header  into  the  snow.  The  snow  had  given 
way  beneath  him,  and  nothing  could  save  him  from 
taking  the  plunge.  I  don't  know  whether  I  called  out, 
or  only  thought,  something  about  the  downfall  of  the 
administration.  At  any  rate,  the  administration  was 
down,  and  pretty  well  buried,  but  it  was  quickly  on 
its  feet  again,  shaking  off  the  snow  with  a  boy's  laugh- 
ter. I  kept  straight  on,  and  very  soon  the  laugh  was 
on  me,  for  the  treacherous  snow  sank  beneath  me, 
and  I  took  a  header,  too. 

"  Who  is  laughing  now,  Oom  John  ?  "  called  out  the 
President. 

The  spirit  of  the  boy  was  in  the  air  that  day  about 
the  Canon  of  the  Yellowstone,  and  the  biggest  boy  of 
us  all  was  President  Roosevelt. 

The  snow  was  getting  so  soft  in  the  middle  of  the  day 
that  our  return  to  the  Mammoth  Hot  Springs  could 
no  longer  be  delayed.  Accordingly,  we  were  up  in 
the  morning,  and  ready  to  start  on  the  home  journey, 
a  distance  of  twenty  miles,  by  four  o'clock.  The  snow 
bore  up  the  horses  well  till  mid-forenoon,  when  it  be- 
gan to  give  way  beneath  them.  But  by  very  careful 
management  we  pulled  through  without  serious  delay, 
and  were  back  again  at  the  house  of  Major  Pitcher 
in  time  for  luncheon,  being  the  only  outsiders  who 
had  ever  made  the  tour  of  the  Park  so  early  in  the  sea- 
son. 

A  few  days  later  I  bade  good-by  to  the  President, 
who  went  on  his  wav  to  California,  while  I  made  a 
loop  of  travel  to  Spokane,  and  around  through  Idaho 
and  Montana,  and  had  glimpses  of  the  great,  optimis- 
tic, sunshiny  West  that  I  shall  not  soon  forget. 


A   TRAMP    IN   THE    CATSKILLS 

In  1868  a  party  of  three  of  us  set  out  for  a  brief 
trouting  excursion  to  a  body  of  water  called  Thomas's 
Lake,  situated  in  the  southern  Catskills.  On  this  ex- 
cursion, more  particularly  than  on  any  other  I  have 
ever  undertaken,  I  was  taught  how  poor  an  Indian  I 
should  make,  and  what  a  ridiculous  figure  a  party 
of  men  may  cut  in  the  woods  when  the  way  is  uncer- 
tain and  the  mountains  high. 

We  left  our  team  at  a  farmhouse  near  the  head  of 
the  Mill  Brook,  one  June  afternoon,  and  with  knap- 
sacks on  our  shoulders  struck  into  the  woods  at  the 
base  of  the  mountain,  hoping  to  cross  the  range  that 
intervened  between  us  and  the  lake  bv  sunset.  We 
engaged  a  good-natured  but  rather  indolent  young 
man,  who  happened  to  be  stopping  at  the  house,  and 
who  had  carried  a  knapsack  in  the  Union  armies,  to 
pilot  us  a  couple  of  miles  into  the  woods  so  as  to  guard 
against  any  mistakes  at  the  outset.  It  seemed  the  easi- 
est thinor  in  the  w^orld  to  find  the  lake.  The  lav  of  the 
land  was  so  simple,  according  to  accounts,  that  I  fell 
sure  I  could  go  to  it  in  the  dark.  "  Go  up  this  little 
brook  to  its  source  on  the  side  of  the  mountain,"  they 
said.  "The  vallev  that  contains  the  lake  heads  di- 
rectlv  on  the  other  side."  What  could  be  easier!  Bu 
on  a  little  further  inquiry,  they  said  we  should  "  bea. 
well  to  the  left "  when  we  reached  the  top  of  the  moun- 
tain. This  opened  the  doors  again;  "bearing  well  to 
the  left"   was  an   uncertain  performance  in  strange 


A  TRAMP  IN  THE   CATSKILLS  73 

woods.   We  might  bear  so  well  to  the  left  that  it  would 
bring  us  ill.    But  why  bear  to  the  left  at  all,  if  the  lake 
was  directly  opposite?    Well,   not  quite  opposite;    a 
little  to  the  left.    There  were  two  or  three  other  val- 
leys that  headed  in  near  there.    We  could  easily  find 
the  right  one.    But  to  make  assurance  doubly  sure, 
we  engaged  a  guide,  as  stated,  to  give  us  a  good  start, 
and  go  with  us  beyond  the  bearing-to-the-left  point. 
He  had  been  to  the  lake  the  winter  before  and  knew 
the  way.    Our  course,  the  first  half  hour,  was  along 
an  obscure  wood-road  which  had  been  used  for  draw- 
ing ash  logs  off  the  mountain  in  winter.    There  was 
some  hemlock,  but  more  maple  and  birch.   The  woods 
were    dense    and    free   from    underbrush,   the   ascent 
gradual.    Most  of  the  way  we  kept  the  voice  of  the 
creek  in  our  ear  on  the  right.    I  approached  it  once, 
and  found  it  swarming  with  trout.    The  water  was  as 
cold  as  one  ever  need  wish.    After  a  while  the  ascent 
grew  steeper,  the  creek  became  a  mere  rill  that  issued 
from  beneath  loose,  moss-covered  rocks  and  stones, 
and  with  much  labor  and  puflSng  we  drew  ourselves 
up  the  rugged  declivity.    Every  mountain  has  its  steep- 
est point,  which  is  usually  near  the  summit,  in  keeping, 
I  suppose,  with  the  providence  that  makes  the  darkest 
hour  just  before  day.    It  is  steep,  steeper,  steepest, 
till  you  emerge  on  the  smooth  level  or  gently  rounded 
space  at  the  top,  which  the  old  ice-gods  polished  off 
so  long  ago. 

We  found  this  mountain  had  a  hollow  in  its  back 
where  the  ground  was  soft  and  swampy.  Some  gi- 
gantic ferns,  which  we  passed  through,  came  nearly 
to  our  shoulders.  We  passed  also  several  patches  of 
swamp  honeysuckles,  red  with  blossoms. 


74  A  TRAMP  IN  THE  CATSKILLS 

Our  guide  at  length  paused  on  a  big  rock  where 
the  land  began  to  dip  down  the  other  way,  and  con- 
cluded that  he  had  gone  far  enough,  and  that  we 
would  now  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  the  lake.  "  It 
must  lie  right  down  there,"  he  said,  pointing  with  his 
hand.  But  it  was  plain  that  he  was  not  quite  sure  in 
his  own  mind.  He  had  several  times  wavered  in  his 
course,  and  had  shown  considerable  embarrassment 
when  bearing  to  the  left  across  the  summit.  Still  we 
thought  little  of  it.  We  w^ere  full  of  confidence,  and, 
bidding  him  adieu,  plunged  down  the  mountain-side, 
following  a  spring  run  that  we  had  no  doubt  led  to 
the  lake. 

In  these  woods,  w^hich  had  a  southeastern  expos- 
ure, I  first  began  to  notice  the  wood  thrush.  In  com- 
ing up  the  other  side  I  had  not  seen  a  feather  of  any 
kind,  or  heard  a  note.  Now  the  golden  irilUde-de 
of  the  wood  thrush  sounded  through  the  silent  woods. 
While  looking  for  a  fish-pole  about  half  way  down  the 
mountain,  I  saw  a  thrush's  nest  in  a  little  sapling 
about  ten  feet  from  the  ground. 

After  continuing  our  descent  till  our  only  guide, 
the  spring  run,  became  quite  a  trout  brook,  and  its 
tiny  murmur  a  loud  brawl,  we  began  to  peer  anx- 
iously through  the  trees  for  a  glimpse  of  the  lake,  or 
for  some  conformation  of  the  land  that  would  indicate 
its  proximity.  An  object  which  w^e  vaguely  discerned 
in  looking  under  the  near  trees  and  over  the  more  dis- 
tant ones  proved,  on  further  inspection,  to  be  a  patch 
of  ploughed  ground.  Presently  we  made  out  a  burnt 
fallow  near  it.  This  was  a  wet  blanket  to  our  enthu- 
siasm. No  lake,  no  sport,  no  trout  for  supper  that 
night.    The  rather  indolent  young  man  had  either 


A  TRAMP  IN  THE  CATSKILLS  75 

played  us  a  trick,  or,  as  seemed  more  likely,  had  missed 
the  way.  We  were  particularly  anxious  to  be  at  the 
lake  between  sundown  and  dark,  as  at  that  time  the 
trout  jump  most  freely. 

Pushing  on,  we  soon  emerged  into  a  stumpy  field, 
at  the  head  of  a  steep  valley,  which  swept  around 
toward  the  w^est.  About  two  hundred  rods  below  us 
was  a  rude  log  house,  with  smoke  issuing  from  the 
chimney.  A  boy  came  out  and  moved  toward  the 
spring  with  a  pail  in  his  hand.  We  shouted  to  him, 
when  he  turned  and  ran  back  into  the  house  without 
pausing  to  reply.  In  a  moment,  the  whole  family  hastily 
rushed  into  the  yard,  and  turned  their  faces  toward  us. 
If  we  had  come  down  their  chimney,  they  could  not 
have  seemed  more  astonished.  Not  making  out  what 
they  said,  I  went  dow^n  to  the  house,  and  learned  to  my 
chagrin  that  we  were  still  on  the  Mill  Brook  side,  having 
crossed  only  a  spur  of  the  mountain.  We  had  not 
borne  sufficiently  to  the  left,  so  that  the  main  range, 
which,  at  the  point  of  crossing,  suddenly  breaks  off 
to  the  southeast,  still  intervened  between  us  and  the 
lake.  We  were  about  five  miles,  as  the  water  runs, 
from  the  point  of  starting,  and  over  two  from  the  lake. 
We  must  go  directly  back  to  the  top  of  the  range  where 
the  guide  had  left  us,  and  then,  by  keeping  well  to  the 
left,  we  would  soon  come  to  a  line  of  marked  trees, 
which  would  lead  us  to  the  lake.  So,  turning  upon  our 
trail,  we  doggedly  began  the  work  of  undoing  what  we 
had  just  done,  —  in  all  cases  a  disagreeable  task,  in 
this  case  a  very  laborious  one  also.  It  w^as  after  sunset 
when  we  turned  back,  and  before  we  had  got  half  way 
up  the  mountain  it  began  to  be  quite  dark.  We  were 
often  obliged  to  rest  our  packs  against  trees  and  take 


76  A  TRAMP  IN  THE  CATSKILLS 

breath,  which  made  our  progress  slow.  Finally  a  halt 
was  called,  beside  an  immense  flat  rock  which  had 
paused  in  its  slide  down  the  mountain,  and  we  prepared 
to  encamp  for  the  night.  A  fire  was  built,  the  rock 
cleared  off,  a  small  ration  of  bread  served  out,  our 
accotftrements  hung  up  out  of  the  way  of  the  hedge- 
hogs that  were  supposed  to  infest  the  locality  and  then 
we  disposed  ourselves  for  sleep.  If  the  owls  or  porcu- 
pines (and  I  think  I  heard  one  of  the  latter  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  night)  reconnoitred  our  camp,  they  saw  a 
buffalo  robe  spread  upon  a  rock,  with  three  old  felt 
hats  arranged  on  one  side,  and  three  pairs  of  sorry- 
looking  cowhide  boots  protruding  from  the  other. 

When  we  lay  down,  there  was  apparently  not  a 
mosquito  in  the  woods;  but  the  "no-see-ems,"  as 
Thoreau's  Indian  aptly  named  the  midges,  soon  found 
us  out,  and  after  the  fire  had  gone  down  annoyed  us 
much.  My  hands  and  wrists  suddenly  began  to  smart 
and  itch  in  a  most  unaccountable  manner.  My  first 
thought  was  that  they  had  been  poisoned  in  some  way. 
Then  the  smarting  extended  to  my  neck  and  face,  even 
to  my  scalp,  when  I  began  to  suspect  what  was  the 
matter.  So,  wrapping  myself  up  more  thoroughly, 
and  stowino^  my  hands  awav  as  best  I  could,  I  tried  to 
sleep,  being  some  time  behind  my  companions,  who 
appeared  not  to  mind  the  "no-see-ems."  I  was  further 
annoyed  by  some  little  irregularity  on  my  side  of  the 
couch.  The  chambermaid  had  not  beaten  it  up  well. 
One  huge  lump  refused  to  be  mollified,  and  each 
attempt  to  adapt  it  to  some  natural  hollow  in  my  own 
body  brought  only  a  moment's  relief.  But  at  last  I 
got  the  better  of  this  also  and  slept.  Late  in  the  night 
I  woke  up,  just  in  time  to  hear  a  golden-crowned  thrush 


IN    THE  WOODS 


A  TRAMP  IN  THE  CATSKILLS  77 

sing  in  a  tree  near  by.  It  sang  as  loud  and  cheerily  as 
at  midday,  and  I  thought  myself,  after  all,  quite  in  luck. 
Birds  occasionally  sing  at  night,  just  as  the  cock  crows. 
I  have  heard  the  hairbird,  and  the  note  of  the  kinirbird; 
and  the  ruffed  grouse  frequently  drums  at  night. 

x\t  the  first  faint  signs  of  day  a  wood  thrush  sang, 
a  few  rods  below  us.  Then  after  a  little  delay,  as  the 
gray  light  began  to  grow  around,  thrushes  broke  out 
in  full  song  in  all  parts  of  the  woods.  I  thought  I  had 
never  before  heard  them  sing  so  sweetly.  Such  a  lei- 
surely, golden  chant !  —  it  consoled  us  for  all  we  had 
undergone.  It  was  the  first  thing  in  order,  —  the 
w^orms  were  safe  till  after  this  morning  chorus.  I  judged 
that  the  birds  roosted  but  a  few  feet  from  the  ground. 
In  fact,  a  bird  in  all  cases  roosts  where  it  builds,  and 
the  wood  thrush  occupies,  as  it  were,  the  first  story  of 
the  woods. 

There  is  something  singular  about  the  distribution 
of  the  w^ood  thrushes.  At  an  earlier  stage  of  my  obser- 
vations I  should  have  been  much  surprised  at  finding 
them  in  these  woods.  Indeed,  I  had  stated  in  print  on 
two  occasions  that  the  wood  thrush  was  not  found  in 
the  higher  lands  of  the  Catskills,  but  that  the  hermit 
thrush  and  the  veery,  or  Wilson's  thrush,  were  common. 
It  turns  out  that  this  statement  is  only  half  true.  The 
w^ood  thrush  is  found  also,  but  is  much  more  rare  and 
secluded  in  its  habits  than  either  of  the  others,  being 
seen  only  during  the  breeding  season  on  remote  moun- 
tains, and  then  only  on  their  eastern  and  southern 
slopes.  I  have  never  yet  in  this  region  found  the  bird 
spending  the  season  in  the  near  and  familiar  woods, 
which  is  directly  contrary  to  observations  I  have  made 
in  other  parts  of  the  State.  So  different  are  the  habits 
of  birds  in  different  localities. 


78  A  TRAMP   IN   THE   CATSKILLS 

As  soon  as  it  was  fairly  light  we  were  up  and  ready 
to  resume  our  march.  A  small  bit  of  bread-and-butter 
and  a  swallow  or  two  of  whiskey  was  all  we  had  for 
breakfast  that  morning.  Our  supply  of  each  was  very 
limited,  and  we  were  anxious  to  save  a  little  of  both, 
to  relieve  the  diet  of  troUt  to  which  we  looked  forward. 

At  an  early  hour  we  reached  the  rock  where  we  had 
parted  with  the  guide,  and  looked  around  us  into  the 
dense,  trackless  woods  with  many  misgivings.  To 
strike  out  now  on  our  own  hook,  where  the  way  was 
so  blind  and  after  the  experience  we  had  just  had, 
was  a  step  not  to  be  carelessly  taken.  The  tops  of  these 
mountains  are  so  broad,  and  a  short  distance  in  the 
woods  seems  so  far,  that  one  is  bv  no  means  master  of 
the  situation  after  reaching  the  summit.  And  then 
there  are  so  many  spurs  and  offshoots  and  changes  of 
direction,  added  to  the  impossibility  of  making  any 
generalization  by  the  aid  of  the  eye,  that  before  one  is 
aware  of  it  he  is  verv  wide  of  his  mark. 

I  remembered  now  that  a  young  farmer  of  my  ac- 
quaintance had  told  me  how  he  had  made  a  long  day's 
march  through  the  heart  of  this  region,  without  path 
or  guide  of  any  kind,  and  had  hit  his  mark  squarely. 
He  had  been  barkpeeling  in  Callikoon,  —  a  famous 
country  for  bark,  —  and,  having  got  enough  of  it,  he 
desired  to  reach  his  home  on  Drv  Brook  without 
making  the  usual  circuitous  journey  between  the  two 
places.  To  do  this  necessitated  a  march  of  ten  or 
twelve  miles  across  several  ranges  of  mountains  and 
through  an  unbroken  forest,  —  a  hazardous  under- 
taking in  which  no  one  would  join  him.  Even  the  old 
hunters  who  were  familiar  with  the  ground  dissuaded 
him  and  predicted  the  failure  of  his  enterprise.    But 


A  TRAMP  IN  THE  CATSKILLS  79 

having  made  up  his  mind,  he  possessed  himself  thor- 
oughly of  the  topography  of  the  country  from  the 
aforesaid  hunters,  shouldered  his  axe,  and  set  out, 
holding  a  straight  course  through  the  woods,  and 
turning  aside  for  neither  swamps,  streams,  nor  moun- 
tains. When  he  paused  to  rest  he  would  mark  some 
object  ahead  of  him  with  his  eye,  in  order  that  on  get- 
ting up  again  he  might  not  deviate  from  his  course. 
His  directors  had  told  him  of  a  hunter's  cabin  about 
midw^ay  on  his  route,  which  if  he  struck  he  might  be 
sure  he  w^as  right.  About  noon  this  cabin  was  reached, 
and  at  sunset  he  emerged  at  the  head  of  Dry  Brook. 

After  looking  in  vain  for  the  line  of  marked  trees,  we 
moved  off  to  the  left  in  a  doubtful,  hesitating  manner, 
keeping  on  the  highest  ground  and  blazing  the  trees  as 
we  went.  We  were  afraid  to  go  down  hill,  lest  we 
should  descend  too  soon;  our  vantage-ground  was  high 
ground.  A  thick  fog  coming  on,  we  were  more  bewil- 
dered than  ever.  Still  we  pressed  forward,  climbing  up 
ledges  and  wading  through  ferns  for  about  two  hours, 
when  we  paused  by  a  spring  that  issued  from  beneath 
an  immense  wall  of  rock  that  belted  the  highest  part  of 
the  mountain.  There  was  quite  a  broad  plateau  here, 
and  the  birch  wood  was  very  dense,  and  the  trees  of 
unusual  size. 

After  resting  and  exchanging  opinions,  we  all  con- 
cluded that  it  was  best  not  to  continue  our  search 
incumbered  as  we  were;  but  we  were  not  willing  to 
abandon  it  altogether,  and  I  proposed  to  my  com- 
panions to  leave  them  beside  the  spring  w^ith  our  traps, 
while  I  made  one  thorough  and  final  effort  to  find  the 
lake.  If  I  succeeded  and  desired  them  to  come  for- 
ward, I  was  to  fire  my  gun  three  times;  if  I  failed  and 


BO  A  TRAMP  IN  THE  CATSKILLS 

wished  to  return,  I  would  fire  it  twice,  they  of  course 

responding. 

So,  fiUing  my  canteen  from  the  spring,  I  set  out 
again,  taking  the  spring  run  for  my  guide.    Before  I 
had  followed  it  two  hundred  yards  it  sank  into  the 
ground  at  my  feet.    I  had  half  a  mind  to  be  supersti- 
tious and  to  believe  that  we  were  under  a  spell,  since 
our  guides  played  us  such  tricks.    However,  I  deter- 
mined to  put  the  matter  to  a  further  test,  and  struck 
out  boldly  to  the  left.  This  seemed  to  be  the  keyword, 
—  to  the  left,  to  the  left.    The  fog  had  now^  lifted,  so 
that  I  could  form  a  better  idea  of  the  lay  of  the  land. 
Twice  I  looked  down  the  steep  sides  of  the  mountain, 
sorely  tempted  to  risk  a  plunge.    Still  I  hesitated  and 
kept  along  on  the  brink.   As  I  stood  on  a  rock  deliber- 
ating, I  heard  a  crackling  of  the  brush,  like  the  tread 
of  some  large  game,  on  a  plateau  below  me.  Suspecting 
the  truth  of  the  case,  I  moved  stealthily  down,  and 
found  a  herd  of  young  cattle  leisurely  browsing.    We 
had  several  times  crossed  their  trail,  and  had  seen  that 
morning  a  level,  grassy  place  on  the  top  of  the  moun- 
tain, where  they  had  passed  the  night.  Instead  of  being 
frightened,  as  I  had  expected,  they  seemed  greatly 
delighted,  and  gathered  around  me  as  if  to  inquire 
the  tidings  from  the  outer  world,  —  perhaps  the  quo- 
tations of  the  cattle  market.  They  came  up  to  me,  and 
eagerly  licked  my  hand,  clothes,  and  gun.    Salt  was 
what  they  were  after,  and  they  were  ready  to  swallow 
anything  that  contained  the  smallest  percentage  of  it. 
They  were  mostly  yearlings  and  as  sleek  as  moles. 
They  had  a  very  gamy  look.   We  were  afterwards  told 
that,  in  the  spring,  the  farmers  round  about  turn  into 
these  woods  their  young  cattle,  which  do  not  come  out 


A  TRAMP  IN  THE  CATSKII.LS  81 

again  till  fall.  They  are  then  in  good  condition,  —  not 
fat,  like  grass-fed  cattle,  but  trim  and  supple,  like  deer. 
Once  a  month  the  owner  hunts  them  up  and  salts  them. 
Thev  have  their  beats,  and  seldom  wander  beyond 
well-defined  limits.  It  was  interesting  to  see  them  feed. 
They  browsed  on  the  low  limbs  and  bushes,  and  on  the 
various  plants,  munching  at  everything  without  any 
apparent  discrimination. 

Thev  attempted  to  follow  me,  but  I  escaped  them 
by  clambering  down  some  steep  rocks.  I  now  found 
myself  gradually  edging  down  the  side  of  the  moun- 
tain, keeping  around  it  in  a  spiral  manner,  and  scan- 
ning the  woods  and  the  shape  of  the  ground  for  some 
encouraging  hint  or  sign.  Finally  the  w^oods  became 
more  open,  and  the  descent  less  rapid.  The  trees  were 
remarkably  straight  and  uniform  in  size.  Black  birches, 
the  first  I  had  seen,  were  very  numerous.  I  felt  encour- 
aged. Listening  attentively,  I  caught,  from  a  breeze 
just  lifting  the  drooping  leaves,  a  sound  that  I  willingly 
believed  was  made  by  a  bullfrog.  On  this  hint,  I  tore 
dow^n  through  the  woods  at  my  highest  speed.  Then  I 
paused  and  listened  again.  This  time  there  was  no 
mistaking  it;  it  w^as  the  sound  of  frogs.  Much  elated, 
I  rushed  on.  By  and  by  I  could  hear  them  as  I  ran. 
Pthrung,  pthrung,  croaked  the  old  ones;  pug,  pug, 
shrilly  joined  in  the  smaller  fry. 

Then  I  caught,  through  the  lower  trees,  a  gleam 
of  blue,  which  I  first  thought  was  distant  sky.  A 
second  look  and  I  knew  it  to  be  water,  and  in  a  moment 
more  I  stepped  from  the  woods  and  stood  upon  the 
shore  of  the  lake.  I  exulted  silently.  There  it  was  at 
last,  sparkling  in  the  morning  sun,  and  as  beautiful 
as  a  dream.   It  was  so  good  to  come  upon  such  open 


82  A   TRAMP   IN  THE   CATSKILLS 

space  and  such  bright  hues,  after  wandering  in  the 
dim,  dense  woods!  The  eye  is  as  dehghted  as  an 
escaped  bird,  and  darts  gleefully  from  point  to  point. 

The  lake  was  a  long  oval,  scarcely  more  than  a  mile 
in  circumference,  with  evenly  wooded  shores,  which 
rose  gradually  on  all  sides.  After  contemplating  the 
scene  for  a  moment,  I  stepped  back  into  the  woods, 
and,  loading  my  gun  as  heavily  as  I  dared,  discharged  it 
three  times.  The  reports  seemed  to  fill  all  the  moun- 
tains with  sound.  The  frogs  quickly  hushed,  and  I 
listened  for  the  response.  But  no  response  came.  Then 
I  tried  again  and  again,  but  without  evoking  an 
answer.  One  of  my  companions,  however,  who  had 
climbed  to  the  top  of  the  high  rocks  in  the  rear  of  the 
spring,  thought  he  heard  faintly  one  report.  It  seemed 
an  immense  distance  below  him,  and  far  around  under 
the  mountain.  I  knew  I  had  come  a  long  way,  and 
hardly  expected  to  be  able  to  communicate  with  my 
companions  in  the  manner  agreed  upon.  I  therefore 
started  back,  choosing  my  course  without  anv  reference 
to  the  circuitous  route  by  which  I  had  come,  and  load- 
ing  heavily  and  firing  at  intervals.  I  must  have  aroused 
many  long-dormant  echoes  from  a  Rip  Van  Winkle 
sleep.  As  my  powder  got  low,  I  fired  and  halloed  alter- 
nately, till  I  came  near  splitting  both  my  throat  and 
gun.  Finally,  after  I  had  begun  to  have  a  very  ugly 
feeling  of  alarm  and  disappointment,  and  to  cast  about 
vaguely  for  some  course  to  pursue  in  the  emergency 
that  seemed  near  at  hand,  —  namely,  the  loss  of  my 
companions  now  I  had  found  the  lake,  —  a  favoring 
breeze  brought  me  the  last  echo  of  a  response.  I 
rejoined  with  spirit,  and  hastened  with  all  speed  in  the 
directiou    whence    the    sound    had    come,    but,    after 


A  TRAMP  IN  THE  CATSKILLS  83 

repeated  trials,  failed  to  elicit  another  answering  sound. 
Th^s  filled  me  with  apprehension  again.  I  feared  that 
my  friends  had  been  misled  by  the  reverberations, 
and  I  pictured  them  to  myself  hastening  in  the  oppo- 
site direction.  Paying  little  attention  to  my  course, 
but  paying  dearly  for  my  carelessness  afterward,  I 
rushed  forward  to  undeceive  them.  But  they  had  not 
been  deceived,  and  in  a  few  moments  an  answering 
shout  revealed  them  near  at  hand.  I  heard  their 
tramp,  the  bushes  parted,  and  we  three  met  again. 

In  answer  to  their  eager  inquiries,  I  assured  them 
that  I  had  seen  the  lake,  that  it  was  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountain,  and  that  we  could  not  miss  it  if  w^e  kept 
straight  down  from  where  we  then  were. 

My  clothes  were  soaked  with  perspiration,  but  I 
shouldered  my  knapsack  with  alacrity,  and  we  began 
the  descent.  I  noticed  that  the  woods  were  much 
thicker,  and  had  quite  a  different  look  from  those  I 
had  passed  through,  but  thought  nothing  of  it,  as  I 
expected  to  strike  the  lake  near  its  head,  whereas  I  had 
before  come  out  at  its  foot.  We  had  not  gone  far  when 
we  crossed  a  line  of  marked  trees,  which  my  com- 
panions were  disposed  to  follow.  It  intersected  our 
course  nearly  at  right  angles,  and  kept  along  and  up 
the  side  of  the  mountain.  My  impression  was  that  it 
led  up  from  the  lake,  and  that  by  keeping  bur  own 
course  w^e  should  reach  the  lake  sooner  than  if  we  fol- 
lowed this  line. 

About  half  w^av  dow^n  the  mountain,  we  could  see 
through  the  interstices  the  opposite  slope.  I  encour- 
aged my  comrades  by  telling  them  that  the  lake  was 
betw^een  us  and  that,  and  not  more  than  half  a  mile 
distant.   We  soon  reached  the  bottom,  where  we  found 


84  A  TRAMP  IN  THE   CATSKILLS 

a  small  stream  and  quite  an  extensive  alder  swamp, 
evidently  the  ancient  bed  of  a  lake.  I  explained  to  my 
half-vexed  and  half-incredulous  companions  that  we 
were  probably  above  the  lake,  and  that  this  stream 
must  lead  to  it.  "Follow  it,"  they  said;  "we  will  wait 
here  till  we  hear  from  you." 

So  I  went  on,  more  than  ever  disposed  to  believe 
that  we  were  under  a  spell,  and  that  the  lake  had 
slipped  from  my  grasp  after  all.  Seeing  no  favorable 
sign  as  I  went  forward,  I  laid  down  my  accoutrements, 
and  climbed  a  decaved  beech  that  leaned  out  over  the 
swamp  and  promised  a  good  view  from  the  top.  As  I 
stretched  myself  up  to  look  around  from  the  highest 
attainable  branch,  there  was  suddenlv  a  loud  crack 
at  the  root.  With  a  celeritv  that  would  at  least  have 
done  credit  to  a  bear,  I  regained  the  ground,  having 
caught  but  a  momentary  glimpse  of  the  country,  but 
enough  to  convince  me  no  lake  was  near.  Leaving  all 
incumbrances  here  but  my  gun,  I  still  pressed  on, 
loath  to  be  thus  baffled.  After  floundering  through 
another  alder  swamp  for  nearly  half  a  mile,  I  flattered 
myself  that  I  was  close  on  to  the  lake.  I  caught  sight 
of  a  low  spur  of  the  mountain  sweeping  around  like  a 
half-extended  arm,  and  I  fondly  imagined  that  within 
its  clasp  was  the  object  of  my  search.  But  I  found  only 
more  alder  swamp.  After  this  region  was  cleared,  the 
creek  began  to  descend  the  mountain  very  rapidly.  Its 
banks  became  high  and  narrow,  and  it  went  whirling 
awav  with  a  sound  that  seemed  to  mv  ears  like  a  burst 
of  ironical  laughter.  I  turned  back  with  a  feeling  of 
mingled  disgust,  shame,  and  vexation.  In  fact  I  was 
almost  sick,  and  when  I  reached  my  companions,  after 
an  absence  of  nearly  two  hours,  hungry,  fatigued,  and 


A   TRAMP   IN   TIIi:   CATSKILLS 


85 


disheartened,  I  would  have  sold  my  interest  in  Thomas's 
Lake  at  a  very  low  figure.  For  the  first  time,  I  heartily 
wished  myself  well  out  of  the  woods.  Thomas  might 
keep  his  lake,  and  the  enchanters  guard  his  possession ! 
I  doubted  if  he  had  ever  found  it  the  second  time,  or  if 
any  one  else  ever  had. 

My  companions,  who  were  quite  fresh,  and  who  had 
not  felt  the  strain  of  baffled  purpose  as  I  had,  assumed 
a  more  encouraging  tone.  After  I  had  rested  a  while, 
and  partaken  sparingly  of  the  bread  and  whiskey, 
which  in  such  an  emergency  —  and  only  in  such  —  is 
a  great  improvement  on  bread  and  water,  I  agreed  to 
their  proposition  that  we  should  make  another  attempt. 
As  if  to  reassure  us,  a  robin  sounded  his  cheery  call 
near  by,  and  the  winter  wren,  the  first  I  had  heard 
in  these  woods,  set  his  music-box  going,  which  fairly 
ran  over  with  fine,  gushing,  lyrical  sounds.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  but  this  bird  is  one  of  our  finest 
songsters.  If  it  would  only  thrive  and  sing  well  when 
caged,  like  the  canary,  how  far  it  would  surpass  that 
bird !  It  has  all  the  vivacity  and  versatility  of  the 
canary,  without  any  of  its  shrillness.  Its  song  is  indeed 
a  little  cascade  of  melody. 

We  again  retraced  our  steps,  rolling  the  stone,  as 
it  were,  back  up  the  mountain,  determined  to  commit 
ourselves  to  the  line  of  marked  trees.  These  we  finally 
reached,  and,  after  exploring  the  country  to  the  right, 
saw  that  bearing  to  the  left  was  still  the  order.  The 
trail  led  up  over  a  gentle  rise  of  ground,  and  in  less 
than  twenty  minutes  we  were  in  the  woods  I  had  passed 
through  when  I  found  the  lake.  The  error  I  had  made 
was  then  plain;  we  had  come  off  the  mountain  a  few 
paces  too  far  to  the  right,  and  so  had  passed  down  oi^ 


86  A   TRAMP   IX   THE   CATSKILLS 

the  wrong  side  of  the  ridge,  into  what  we  afterward 
learned  was  the  valley  of  xAlder  Creek. 

We  now  made  good  time,  and  before  many  minutes 
I  again  saw  the  mimic  sky  glance  through  the  trees. 
As  we  approached  the  lake  a  solitary  woodchuck,  the 
first  wild  animal  we  had  seen  since  entering  the  woods, 
sat  crouched  upon  the  root  of  a  tree  a  few  feet  from  the 
water,  apparently  completely  non-plussed  by  the  unex- 
pected appearance  of  danger  on  the  land  side.  All 
retreat  was  cut  off,  and  he  looked  his  fate  in  the  face 
without  flinching.  I  slaughtered  him  just  as  a  savage 
would  have  done,  and  from  the  same  motive,  —  I 
wanted  his  carcass  to  eat. 

The  mid-afternoon  sun  was  now  shining  upon  the 
lake,  and  a  low,  steady  breeze  drove  the  little  waves 
rocking  to  the  shore.  A  herd  of  cattle  were  browsing 
on  the  other  side,  and  the  bell  of  the  leader  sounded 
across  the  water.  In  these  solitudes  its  clang  was  wild 
and  musical. 

To  try  the  trout  was  the  first  thing  in  order.  On  a 
rude  raft  of  logs  which  we  found  moored  at  the  shore, 
and  which  with  two  aboard  shipped  about  a  foot  of 
water,  we  floated  out  and  wet  our  first  flv  in  Thomas's 
Lake;  but  the  trout  refused  to  jump,  and,  to  be  frank, 
not  more  than  a  dozen  and  a  half  were  caught  during 
our  stay.  Only  a  week  previous,  a  party  of  three  had 
taken  in  a  few  hours  all  the  fish  thev  could  carrv  out 
of  the  woods,  and  had  nearly  surfeited  their  neighbors 
with  trout.    But  from  some  cause  thev  now  refused  to 

I.' 

rise,  or  to  touch  any  kind  of  bait :  so  we  fell  to  catching 
the  sunfish,  which  were  small  but  very  abundant. 
Their  nests  were  all  along  shore.  A  space  about  the 
size  of  a  breakfast-plate  was  cleared  of  sediment  and 


A  TRAMP  IN  THE  CATSKILLS  87 

decayed  vegetable  matter,  revealing  the  pebbly  bot- 
tom, fresh  and  bright,  with  one  or  two  fish  suspended 
over  the  centre  of  it,  keeping  watch  and  ward.  If  an 
intruder  approached,  they  would  dart  at  him  spitefully. 
These  fish  have  the  air  of  bantam  cocks,  and,  with  their 
sharp,  prickly  fins  and  spines  and  scaly  sides,  must  be 
ugly  customers  in  a  hand-to-hand  encounter  with  other 
finny  warriors.  To  a  hungry  man  they  look  about  as 
unpromising  as  hemlock  slivers,  so  thorny  and  thin  are 
they;  yet  there  is  sweet  meat  in  them,  as  we  found  that 
day. 

Much  refreshed,  I  set  out  with  the  sun  low  in  the 
west  to  explore  the  outlet  of  the  lake  and  try  for  trout 
there,  while  my  companions  made  further  trials  in 
the  lake  itself.  The  outlet,  as  is  usual  in  bodies  of 
water  of  this  kind,  was  very  gentle  and  private.  The 
stream,  six  or  eight  feet  wide,  flowed  silently  and 
evenly  along  for  a  distance  of  three  or  four  rods, 
when  it  suddenly,  as  if  conscious  of  its  freedom,  took 
a  leap  down  some  rocks.  Thence,  as  far  as  I  fol- 
lowed it,  its  descent  was  very  rapid  through  a  con- 
tinuous succession  of  brief  falls  like  so  many  steps 
down  the  mountain.  Its  appearance  promised  more 
trout  than  I  found,  though  I  returned  to  camp  with 
a  very  respectable  string. 

Toward  sunset  I  went  round  to  explore  the  inlet, 
and  found  that  as  usual  the  stream  wound  leisurely 
through  marshy  ground.  The  water  being  much  colder 
than  in  the  outlet,  the  trout  were  more  plentiful.  As 
I  was  picking  my  way  over  the  miry  ground  and 
through  the  rank  growths,  a  ruffed  grouse  hopped 
up  on  a  fallen  branch  a  few  paces  before  me,  and,  jerk- 
ing his  tail,  threatened  to  take  flight.    But  as  I  was 


88  A   TRAMP    IN   THE    CATSKILLS 

at  that  moment  gunless  and  remained  stationary,  he 
presently  jumped  down  and  walked  away. 

A  seeker  of  birds,  and  ever  on  the  alert  for  some 
new  acquaintance,  my  attention  was  arrested,  on  first 
entering  the  swamp,  by  a  bright,  lively  song,  or  war- 
ble, that  issued  from  the  branches  overhead,  and  that 
was  entirelv  new  to  me.  though  there  was  something 
in  the  tone  of  it  that  told  me  the  bird  was  related  to 
the  wood-wagtail  and  to  the  water-wagtail  or  thrush. 
The  strain  was  emphatic  and  quite  loud,  like  the  ca- 
nary's, but  very  brief.  The  bird  kept  itself  well  secreted  ^ 
in  the  upper  branches  of  the  trees,  and  for  a  long  time 
eluded  my  eye.  I  passed  to  and  fro  several  times,  and 
it  seemed  to  break  out  afresh  as  I  approached  a  cer- 
tain little  bend  in  the  creek,  and  to  cease  after  I  had 
got  beyond  it;  no  doubt  its  nest  was  somewhere  in  the 
vicinity.  After  some  delay  the  bird  was  sighted  and 
brought  down.  It  proved  to  be  the  small,  or  north- 
ern, water-thrush  (called  also  the  New  York  water- 
thrush),  —  a  new  bird  to  me.  In  size  it  was  notice- 
ably smaller  than  the  large,  or  Louisiana,  water-thrush, 
as  described  by  Audubon,  but  in  other  respects  its 
general  appearance  was  the  same.  It  was  a  great  treat 
to  me,  and  again  I  felt  myself  in  luck. 

This  bird  was  unknown  to  the  older  ornithologists, 
and  is  but  poorly  described  by  the  new.  It  builds  a 
mossy  nest  on  the  ground,  or  under  the  edge  of  a  de- 
caved  log.  A  correspondent  writes  me  that  he  has 
found  it  breeding  on  the  mountains  in  Pennsylvania. 
The  large-billed  water-thrush  is  much  the  super ioi 
songster,  but  the  present  species  has  a  very  bright 
and  cheerful  strain.  The  specimen  I  saw,  contrary 
to  the  habits  of  the  family,  kept  in  the  treetops  like  a 


A  TRAMP    IN   THE    CATSKILLS  89 

warbler,  and  seemed  to  be  engaged  in  catching  in- 
sects. 

The  birds  were  unusually  plentiful  and  noisy  about 
the  head  of  this  lake;  robins,  blue  jays,  and  wood- 
peckers greeted  me  with  their  familiar  notes.  The 
blue  jays  found  an  owl  or  some  wild  animal  a  short 
distance  above  me,  and,  as  is  their  custom  on  such 
occasions,  proclaimed  it  at  the  top  of  their  voices,  and 
kept  on  till  the  darkness  began  to  gather  in  the  woods. 

I  also  heard  here,  as  I  had  at  two  or  three  other 
points  in  the  course  of  the  day,  the  peculiar,  resonant 
hammering  of  some  species  of  woodpecker  upon  the 
hard,  dry  limbs.  It  was  unlike  any  sound  of  the  kind 
I  had  ever  before  heard,  and,  repeated  at  intervals 
through  the  silent  woods,  was  a  very  marked  and  char- 
acteristic feature.  Its  peculiarity  was  the  ordered  suc- 
cession of  the  raps,  which  gave  it  the  character  of  a 
premeditated  performance.  There  were  first  three 
strokes  following  each  other  rapidly,  then  two  much 
louder  ones  with  longer  intervals  between  them.  I 
heard  the  drumming  here,  and  the  next  day  at  sun- 
set at  Furlow  Lake,  the  source  of  Dry  Brook,  and  in 
no  instance  was  the  order  varied.  There  was  melody 
in  it,  such  as  a  woodpecker  knows  how  to  evoke  from 
a  smooth,  dry  branch.  It  suggested  something  quite 
IS  pleasing  as  the  liveliest  bird-song,  and  was  if  any- 
thing more  woodsy  and  wild.  As  the  yellow-bellied 
woodpecker  was  the  most  abundant  species  in  these 
woods,  I  attributed  it  to  him.  It  is  the  one  sound  that 
still  links  itself  with  those  scenes  in  my  mind. 

At  sunset  the  grouse  began  to  drum  in  all  parts  of 
the  woods  about  the  lake.  I  could  hear  five  at  one 
time,   thump,   thump,   thump,   thump,   thr-r-r-r-r-r-rr. 


90  A    TRAMP   IN    THE    CATSKILLS 

It  was  a  homely,  welcome  sound.  As  I  returned  to 
camp  at  twilight,  along  the  shore  of  the  lake,  the  frogs 
also  were  in  full  chorus.  The  older  ones  ripped  out 
their  responses  to  each  other  with  terrific  force  and 
volume.  I  know  of  no  other  animal  capable  of  giv- 
ing forth  so  much  sound,  in  proportion  to  its  size,  as 
a  frog.  Some  of  these  seemed  to  bellow  as  loud  as  a 
two-year-old  bull.  They  were  of  immense  size,  and 
very  abundant.  No  frog-eater  had  ever  been  there. 
Near  the  shore  we  felled  a  tree  which  reached  far  out 
in  the  lake.  Upon  the  trunk  and  branches  the  frogs 
had  soon  collected  in  large  numbers,  and  gamboled 
and  splashed  about  the  half-submerged  top,  like  a 
parcel  of  schoolboys,  making  nearly  as  much  noise. 

After  dark,  as  I  was  frying  the  fish,  a  panful  of  the 
largest  trout  was  accidentally  capsized  in  the  fire.  With 
rueful  countenances  we  contemplated  the  irreparable 
loss  our  commissariat  had  sustained  by  this  mishap; 
but  remembering  there  was  virtue  in  ashes,  we  poked 
the  half-consumed  fish  from  the  bed  of  coals  and  ate 
them,  and  they  were  good. 

We  lodged  that  night  on  a  brush-heap  and  slept 
soundly.  The  green,  yielding  beech-twigs,  covered 
with  a  buffalo  robe,  were  equal  to  a  hair  mattress. 
The  heat  and  smoke  from  a  large  fire  kindled  in 
the  afternoon  had  banished  every  "no-see-em"  from 
the  locality,  and  in  the  morning  the  sun  was  above  the 
mountain  before  we  awoke. 

I  immediately  started  again  for  the  inlet,  and  went 
far  up  the  stream  toward  its  source.  A  fair  string  of 
trout  for  breakfast  was  my  reward.  The  cattle  with 
the  bell  were  at  the  head  of  the  valley,  where  they  had 
passed  the  night.    Most  of  them  were  two-year-old 


A   TRAMP   IN   THE   CATSKILLS 


91 


steers.  They  came  up  to  me  and  begged  for  salt, 
and  scared  the  fish  by  their  importunities. 

We  finished  our  bread  that  morning,  and  ate  every 
fish  we  could  catch,  and  about  ten  o'clock  prepared 
to  leave  the  lake.  The  weather  had  been  admirable, 
and  the  lake  was  a  gem,  and  I  would  gladly  have  spent 
a  week  in  the  neighborhood;  but  the  question  of  sup- 
plies was  a  serious  one,  and  would  brook  no  delay. 

When  we  reached,  on  our  return,  the  point  where 
we  had  crossed  the  line  of  marked  trees  the  day  be- 
fore, the  question  arose  whether  we  should  still  trust 
ourselves  to  this  line,  or  follow  our  own  trail  back  to 
the  spring  and  the  battlement  of  rocks  on  the  top  of 
the  mountain,  and  thence  to  the  rock  where  the  guide 
had  left  us.  We  decided  in  favor  of  the  former  course. 
After  a  march  of  three  quarters  of  an  hour  the  blazed 
trees  ceased,  and  we  concluded  we  were  near  the  point 
at  which  we  had  parted  with  the  guide.  So  we  built 
a  fire,  laid  down  our  loads,  and  cast  about  on  all  sides 
for  some  clew  as  to  our  exact  locality.  Nearly  an  hour 
was  consumed  in  this  manner  and  without  any  result. 
I  came  upon  a  brood  of  young  grouse,  which  diverted 
me  for  a  moment.    The  old  one  blustered  about  at  a 

m 

furious  rate,  trying  to  draw  all  attention  to  herself, 
while  the  young  ones,  which  were  unable  to  fly,  hid 
themselves.  She  whined  like  a  dog  in  great  distress, 
and  dragged  herself  along  apparently  with  the  great- 
est difficulty.  As  I  pursued  her,  she  ran  very  nimbly, 
and  presently  flew  a  few  yards.  Then,  as  I  went  on, 
she  flew  farther  and  farther  each  time,  till  at  last  she 
got  up,  and  went  humming  through  the  woods  as  if 
she  had  no  interest  in  them.  I  went  back  and  caught 
one  of  the  young,  which  had  simply  squatted  close  to 


92  A   TRAMP    IN   THE    CATSKILLS 

the  leaves.  I  took  it  up  and  set  it  on  the  palm  of  my 
hand,  which  it  hugged  as  closely  as  if  still  upon  the 
ground.  I  then  put  it  in  my  coatsleeve,  when  it  ran 
and  nestled  in  my  armpit. 

When  we  met  at  the  sign  of  the  smoke,  opinions 
differed  as  to  the  most  feasible  course.  There  was  no 
doubt  but  that  we  could  get  out  of  the  woods;  but  we 
wished  to  get  out  speedily,  and  as  near  as  possible  to 
the  point  where  we  had  entered.  Half  ashamed  of  our 
timidity  and  indecision,  we  finally  tramped  away 
back  to  where  we  had  crossed  the  line  of  blazed  trees, 
followed  our  old  trail  to  the  spring  on  the  top  of  the 
range,  and,  after  much  searching  and  scouring  to  the 
right  and  left,  found  ourselves  at  the  very  place  we 
had  left  two  hours  before.  Another  deliberation  and 
a  divided  council.  But  something  must  be  done.  It 
was  then  mid-afternoon,  and  the  prospect  of  spending 
another  night  on  the  mountains,  without  food  or  drink, 
was  not  pleasant.  So  we  moved  down  the  ridge.  Here 
another  line  of  marked  trees  was  found,  the  course 
of  which  formed  an  obtuse  angle  with  the  one  we  had 
followed.  It  kept  on  the  top  of  the  ridge  for  perhaps 
a  mile,  when  it  entirely  disappeared,  and  we  were  as 
much  adrift  as  ever.  Then  one  of  the  party  swore  an 
oath,  and  said  he  was  going  out  of  those  woods,  hit 
or  miss,  and,  wheeling  to  the  right,  instantly  plunged 
over  the  brink  of  the  mountain.  The  rest  followed, 
but  would  fain  have  paused  and  ciphered  away  at 
their  own  uncertainties,  to  see  if  a  certaintv  could  not 
be  arrived  at  as  to  where  we  would  come  out.  But 
our  bold  leader  was  solving  the  problem  in  the  right 
way.  Down  and  down  and  still  down  we  went,  as  if 
we  were  to  bring  up  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth.    It  was 


A   TRAMP   IN   THE   CATSKILLS  93 

by  far  the  steepest  descent  we  had  made,  and  we  felt  a 
grim  satisfaction  in  knowing  that  we  could  not  retrace 
our  steps  this  time,  be  the  issue  what  it  might.  As 
we  paused  on  the  brink  of  a  ledge  of  rocks,  we  chanced 
to  see  through  the  trees  distant  cleared  land.  A  house 
or  barn  also  was  dimly  descried.  This  was  encour- 
aging; but  we  could  not  make  out  whether  it  was  on 
Beaver  Kill  or  Mill  Brook  or  Dry  Brook,  and  did  not 
long  stop  to  consider  where  it  was.  We  at  last  brought 
up  at  the  bottom  of  a  deep  gorge,  through  which  flowed 
a  rapid  creek  that  literally  swarmed  with  trout.  But  we 
were  in  no  mood  to  catch  tbem,  and  pushed  on  along 
the  channel  of  the  stream,  sometimes  leaping  from 
rock  to  rock,  and  sometimes  splashing  heedlessly 
through  the  water,  and  speculating  the  while  as  to 
where  we  should  probably  come  out.  On  the  Beaver 
Kill,  my  companions  thought;  but,  from  the  position 
of  the  sun,  I  said,  on  the  Mill  Brook,  about  six  mile^ 
below  our  team;  for  I  remembered  having  seen,  in 
coming  up  this  stream,  a  deep,  wild  valley  that  led 
up  into  the  mountains,  like  this  one.  Soon  the  banks 
of  the  stream  became  lower,  and  we  moved  into  the 
woods.  Here  we  entered  upon  an  obscure  wood-road, 
which  presently  conducted  us  into  the  midst  of  a  vast 
hemlock  forest.  The  land  had  a  gentle  slope,  and  we 
wondered  why  the  lumbermen  and  barkmen  who  prowl 
through  these  woods  had  left  this  fine  tract  untouched. 
Beyond  this  the  forest  was  mostlv  birch  and  maple. 
We  were  now  close  to  the  settlement,  and  began 
to  hear  human  sounds.  One  rod  more,  and  we  were 
cut  of  the  woods.  It  took  us  a  moment  to  comprehend 
the  scene.  Things  looked  very  strange  at  first;  but 
quickly  they  began  to  change  and  to  put  on  familiar 


94  A   TRAMP    IN   THE   CATSKILLS 

features.  Some  magic  scene-shifting  seemed  to  take 
place  before  my  eyes,  till,  instead  of  the  unknown  set- 
tlement which  I  at  first  seemed  to  look  upon,  there 
stood  the  farmhouse  at  w^hich  w^e  had  stopped  two 
days  before,  and  at  the  same  moment  we  heard  the 
stamping  of  our  team  in  the  barn.  We  sat  down  and 
laughed  heartily  over  our  good  luck.  Our  desperate 
venture  had  resulted  better  than  we  had  dared  to  hope, 
and  had  shamed  our  wisest  plans.  At  the  house  our 
arrival  had  been  anticipated  about  this  time,  and  din- 
ner was  being  put  upon  the  table. 

It  was  then  five  o'clock,  so  that  we  had  been  in  the 
woods  just  forty-eight  hours;  but  if  time  is  only  phe- 
nomenal, as  the  philosophers  say,  and  life  only  in  feel- 
ing, as  the  poets  aver,  we  were  some  months,  if  not 
years,  older  at  that  moment  than  we  had  been  two 
days  before.  Yet  younger,  too,  —  though  this  be  a 
paradox,  —  for  the  birches  had  infused  into  us  some 
Di  their  ow^n  suppleness  and  strength. 


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